The Fire and the Rose-chapter 27-40
by wishfultinkering
Summary: A potions accident leads to an unexpected meeting of minds. Authors: MetroVampire & Rhosymedre
1. Chapter 1

**This beautiful story isn't mine. It belongs to MetroVampire & Rhosymedre.** **I** **am only uploading it so people can find and read it more easily, the other, less savory, alternatives being Wayback Machine and PDF files.**

 **Previous chapters can be found here: "** **www . fanfiction s/676157/1/The-Fire-and-the-Rose"**

 **The Fire and the Rose Part 27**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 27 - The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul_

Hermione stifled a grin - Snape most emphatically did _not_ grin in public - and pulled herself a little further back. She knew that Sirius was due to arrive to collect "Hermione" and the boys and a small devil inside had prompted her to conceal herself where she could watch the meeting. It was all she could do not to snort as she watched Sirius lean forward and place a gallant kiss on Snape's cheek. To her observant eyes, a slight stiffening betrayed the effort that he was making not to flinch away from the contact. Fortunately, none of the others noticed anything, thus reinforcing Hermione's view of the ability of the average male to pick up on subtle behavioural cues.

Watching Sirius organise the other three was odd, she thought. His voice floated across to where she was hiding; not close enough for her to distinguish the actual words, but she could hear the half-flirting tone as he said something to Snape. Snape, to his credit, didn't react. In the course of the general chivvying, Sirius lifted his hand and for a moment it hovered in the vicinity of Snape's back, almost but not quite touching. Unconsiously, she flinched for him. She doubted whether Snape's self-control would stand up to a friendly embrace from the other man. But the hand stopped short and then the four of them were gone.

And she felt perversely bereft.

Which meant that there was only one thing to do. Return to the dungeons and make a start on the impossibly long list of things that Snape, in a last minute reversion to type, had left for her to do over the holidays. On top of her student assignnments that was. Oh, and the small matter of visiting her forcibly adopted parents.

Pulling her robes around her, she swept off in the direction of her private domain.

She might well throw herself into her work but it didn't stop the passage of time. With callous disregard for the state of Hermione's nerves, the 23rd December dawned. Breakfast came and went, and so did lunch, and finally she decided that there was no getting away from it. She had considered feigning illness - hell, she even had considered brewing something with short acting, but unpleasant, effects and then drinking it. But Poppy Pomfrey would no doubt detect the ruse, skilled as she was in foiling the plans of students who had some ulterior motive for desiring a short stay in the hospital wing.

She checked her luggage for the last time; clothes, fresh bar of that green soap that he used, together with a contraband bottle of Snape's home brewed shampoo. If he could reassert his personality over the holidays, so could she; and her personality was one that appreciated clean hair. Although she was accustomed to the feel of his hair by now, it didn't mean she had to like it and if she used the shampoo sparingly no one would notice the difference. And books of course, selected from his collection; she could hardly be seen by Snape's parents to be doing her Christmas homework.

Eventually, there was nothing more to check. She reduced her bag and, with more confidence than she felt, warded her rooms. She made her way through the school, pulling Snape's persona around her tightly, trying to infuse her whole being with unadulterated Snape-ness. Too soon, she came to the main hall. She passed under the hourglasses that showed the house points, now unusually static; the students remaining over the holidays were obviously managing to be neither good nor bad at that particular moment. Or at least not being caught at either.

She had one hand on the door, when she was stopped by a hearty voice.

"Off somewhere nice for the holidays are you, Snape?" It was Hooch. Hermione tried not to wince.

"I intend to spend a few days with my parents," she returned repressively, hoping that Hooch would get the hint.

"Thus giving the lie to the rumour that you were brewed up one day in a cauldron." Hooch laughed at her own humour.

It was intended to be a joke, Hermione knew that, but somehow it didn't strike her as funny. It was the sort of thing that Harry or Ron would have said. The sort of teenage-boy-wisecrack that she didn't usually join in with, not even as a student. But hadn't it ever struck his colleagues that there was more to the man than that?

She didn't question too closely where the protective instinct had sprung from. Or why it was suddenly that much fiercer.

"I was under the impression that the most popular view was that I was a vampire, and was thus, simply bitten into existence," she retorted, repeating another one of Ron's pet theories.

She suspected that there was a little too much venom in that remark to be able to pass it off as simple teasing. Before Hooch could respond, she had opened the door and was through it into the snow.

The sense of annoyance over Hooch's comment, and her own awareness that she had overreacted, took the edge off any pleasure that she might have felt at the walk down to the main gates. The sun glinted off the snow, causing her to squint against the glare and making her eyes water. She stomped through the drifts towards the boundary, oblivious to the beauty of the scene, feeling only the dragging resistance to her steps.

She paused, once she had passed the outer limits of the last of the anti-Apparation wards, hoping that Snape's description of her destination had been detailed enough. It was the first time that she had apparated to somewhere that she didn't know. In fact, it was only the third time that she had apparated anywhere at all.

Splinching myself is all it would take to make this the perfect Christmas, she thought sourly.

She gathered herself to apparate, and then jumped as a hand touched her arm lightly.

 _If it's that woman with another cheap shot, I swear I won't be reponsible for my actions..._

She turned in annoyance, to be faced with Albus Dumbledore.

Which was, she reflected, almost as bad. It meant that you were about to be manoeuvred into doing something that was much against your better judgement, and somehow it would turn out to be your own idea.

"I gather that you won't be with us for Christmas Day this year, Hermione," he said softly.

Hermione nearly choked in shock. It was so long since someone, other than Snape, had called her by the name she still gave herself, that she half wanted to look round for Snape.

In an instant she was Hermione Granger, Head Girl again, awkwardly inhabiting someone else's body.

"Um, no," she managed. "I have to go and visit my... I mean Severus's... I mean Professor Snape's... parents."

Dumbledore didn't seem to notice the uncharacteristic fluster.

"Severus hasn't seen his parents for a long time," he mused.

"I know," she said. "He told me that. They just sort of summoned me... I mean him."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

"He is normally adept at avoiding that sort of summons."

 _What? There was a way he could have got me out of this?_

Hermione's protective instincts vanished in a profound desire to kill her Potions Master. Once he was back in his own body, of course.

"Is he?" she said grimly. "I must have a chat with him about that."

Dumbledore smiled inscrutably.

"Ah well, I expect there's no help for it now. Have a pleasant time, my dear."

She was about to draw breath to ask for Dumbledore's help in devising some kind of last minute excuse, but the headmaster had unaccountably vanished.

Her thoughts about her beloved headmaster were less than charitable at that moment as well. Slytherin must be seeping into my brain, she thought.

And apparated.

She was profoundly grateful that she had decided to arrive in daylight.

Hogwarts had been cold and snowbound; glittering and beautiful and festive.

This place was just cold.

There was no snow, just a bitter, icy drizzle, tangy with the promise of sea. The sky was heavy and the late afternoon winter light leached the world into black and white. There were scattered patches of vegetation here and there, but even they seemed to be struggling to maintain the colour green. She was standing in a narrow lane, which had attracted someone's notice sufficiently for some council to tarmac it at some stage. The cracks and potholes in the surface suggested that it had seen little use or attention since. Edging the road was a hawthorn hedge which abruptly gave way to a three foot high wall, with rounded capstones, and which appeared to be mostly made of flints. Half way along, the wall was broken by a small gate, which gave onto a short path, which in turn lead through a semi-overgrown garden to the house.

The house itself was as grey as the surroundings, built of the same materials as the garden wall. It was what Hermione used to fancifully describe as a playschool house. Two storeys; a door in the centre with a window on either side and three windows upstairs. It showed no concession to the season, not even a wreath on the door or a card standing on a windowsill.

She shivered and wished she shared Snape's confidence that she would be able to fool his parents.

Nervously, she opened the gate and headed up the path. At the door she paused. Would Snape knock on the door of his own parents' house? Should she just walk in?

She raised a hand, and was mercifully spared the decision as the door swung open. At first she thought of a charm, but then she noticed the very small house elf scuttling into the shadows. Tentatively, she stepped inside.

The hall was only barely warmer than outside. It was certainly no lighter. An odour of stale, overcooked vegetable hung in the air. In fact, about the only thing you could say for it, was that it was dry. She had the impression of brown; brown door frames and skirting boards, brown ceilings and browny-green walls. There was an ugly table to the right of the door and a single straight flight of stairs ran up the left side of the hall. A door to her right opened and a tallish woman emerged, dressed in floral print robes with a small round white collar. Her hair was white and tightly coiffed into what Hermione always thought of as old-lady-perm.

"Severus, dear, what on earth are you doing hanging around on the doorstep? Why didn't you apparate straight in?"

The woman came over and gave her a perfunctory peck on the cheek.

"I thought I'd take a look at the house from the outside," she ventured. "It's been a while since I was here."

"Well, nothing's changed much," the woman responded, seeming to accept this as a perfectly valid reason for her behaviour. "Except that the wisteria died, but I expect that you noticed that."

"Yes, I did," she lied, and followed the woman into the living room.

By the end of the evening, Hermione was beginning to think that she might actually get away with the deception.

Snape's parents were older than she had expected; he must have been a late baby. His mother twittered around her, asking if she had had enough to eat, if she was warm enough, if she had brought thick robes, all without visibly listening to the answers. His father, a conversationalist to rival Severus himself, she discovered, contented himself with a couple of terse questions about "that school" and then lapsed into silence.

"Don't mind your father, dear, his arthritis is playing him up again." Snape's mother began to fuss around with the cushions only to be impatiently waved away by his father. His mother protested weakly. Neither of them appeared to invest much energy in the exchange. Hermione had the impression that this was a scene that had played itself out so frequently between them that it was now more a matter of habit than anything else.

She felt brave enough to venture an observation at this point.

"I thought you would be away somewhere this year." Yes, that was like Snape. Make a statement, don't ask a question.

His mother looked a little confused.

"Oh, we thought we'd spend Christmas at home this year. You know, what with the Muggles and all that business over the Euro."

Hermione was nonplussed. She couldn't immediately see why the Euro would cause anyone to stay at home, still less wizards who used a different currency anyway.

"I see," she said, not seeing at all.

Snape's mother appeared to be satisfied with the response and bustled off to organise tea, Hermione having managed to persuade her that she had eaten sufficient for lunch and only wanted something light.

Alone with Snape's father, who showed no inclination whatsoever to talk, she was free to sit and take in the room. It was reasonably large. That was about the most positive thing that she could find to say for it. Other than that, it continued the sense of dark brown that had pervaded the hallway. The floor had a worn rug on it, instead of carpet, and, at the edges, Hermione could swear that she saw dark linoleum. Two armchairs were placed facing a small open fire, which seemed to be the only source of heat in the room. Beyond that there was a dresser, some bookshelves - although not so many as she might have expected, knowing Snape's predeliction - and some ugly standard lamps. The whole thing reminded her forcibly of the museums she had visited as a child which had contained fully furnished rooms labelled _How We Used To Live: The War Years._ All it needed was a bakelite radio on the dresser, tuned to the Home Service - Snape's father did not seem like a man who would have any truck with The Light Programme - and it could have been 1941.

Outside the drizzle had developed into rain and was announcing its presence on the window. Hermione tried not to think about Snape and the Burrow.

Meanwhile, Snape's mother had returned with tea, or at least the announcement that Pitty would be bringing tea in just a minute.

She walked over to the dresser, opened one of the doors and busied herself with something. Her body was in Hermione's line of sight so she couldn't see exactly what it was. Finally, Snape's mother straightened and then turned.

"As it's a special occasion, I thought we might have a drop of something to celebrate." She picked up two glasses. "Sherry for you dear." She placed a glass of something brown by Snape's father's chair. He didn't acknowledge it in any way. "And for you, dear, your favourite." She smiled happily, holding out a glass to Hermione.

Hermione politely took it and survyed the inch and a half or so of brownish cloudy liquid. She had done enough investigation of Snape's rooms to know that he had a small collection of rare whiskies, one or two bottles of brandy and a bottle of Absolut Citron. This did not appear to be any of those. She supposed it would be rude to sniff at it; after all she was supposed to know what it was.

She took a small sip, and had to force herself not to gag. Whatever it was was beyond sweet. The syrup clung to the side of the glass and the sides of her mouth. It was so sickly that it made her skin prickle. She could practically feel her teeth rotting on contact.

Snape's mother seemed absurdly proud of the mixture.

"You see I do remember things. Sweet vermouth and sirop d'orange, just as you like it."

Hermione highly doubted that the Snape that she knew would like it very much at all. It really _had_ been a long time since he had been home.

"It's lovely," she said, wondering if she was going to make a true statement at any time during the visit.

The rough shingle crunched under Hermione's feet as she fought her way determinedly along the beach, leaning very slightly into the wind. It was Christmas Day afternoon and for the second time in as many days she had sought the sea as an escape from a house that managed to stifle her, regardless of the chill. Christmas dinner had been an experience that she was not keen to repeat. The vaguely vegetal smell that permeated the house had revealed its source. And that source was broccoli.

Looking at the spongy grey items that were spooned on to her plate, Hermione understood his passionate hatred for the hapless brassica. She politely made her way through an unexceptional meal of tough meat and soggy greens, trying not to think of Christmas at Hogwarts or the Burrow. And after the incident with _vermouth à l'orange_ she declined the wine, pleading an adverse interaction with a wholly fictitious potion that she was taking for an equally fictitious sinus complaint.

That evoked one of the only responses she had heard from Snape's father.

"Potions," he snorted. "Bloody useless, the lot of them."

Snape's mother frowned as she laid down her knife and fork.

"You haven't eaten your broccoli."

"I don't really like broccoli." She tried to make it sound just a little apologetic.

Snape's mother frowned again.

"Yes, you do," she said. "You've always liked it."

There seemed little that she could say to that, but as soon as she could she fled the house.

The need for a walk after the meal was only partially an excuse. Snape's body needed a considerable amount of exercise to function, storing as it did vast reserves of nervous energy. His restless prowling during term time gave him an outlet for a lot of it. Cooped up in a house with nothing to do but read might have suited Hermione's body, but Snape's protested vigorously. Neither of his parents seemed at all fazed by her sudden announcement that she was going out. His father just grunted and his mother murmured something about Severus always being so fond of his walks and his books. In her opinion, he'd hardly changed at all.

She had had no partlcular intention of finding the sea. She had simply struck out away from the house, selecting her path at random. Ten minutes along the lane in the direction that she had chosen brought her out on a cliff edge, with a steep but navigable route down to the shore. Another five minutes of careful scrambling and she was breathing in the icy wind, uncaring of the burning in the back of her throat and the stinging in her eyes, grateful to be somewhere where she could think with a clear, if cold, head. Away from the smell of overcooked vegetables.

The wartime feel of the house didn't stop at the décor. Upstairs there was only cold water; hot water was fetched by a house elf. All the rooms, it appeared, were heated by open fires, laid first thing in the morning by the same elves. For the first time in her life, Hermione woke to find her windows iced over from the inside. She had briefly debated casting some kind of warming charm on her room and then remembered that she had her own wand. If the Ministry detected the use of magic by a student... It might well be that they would not, that it would go by the location not the owner of the wand, but she didn't dare take the risk.

So she shivered until the room warmed enough to make getting up even remotely feasible. She supposed she should be grateful that the Snapes ran to indoor sanitation. The prospect of a trip to a shed at the bottom of the garden was definitely not an attractive one.

The room itself was an mixture of the impersonal, interspersed with insights into Snape's boyhood - books, naturally, but odds and ends that he had obviously collected on his walks. Curiously shaped sticks, smooth stones, intact shells, and something that looked as if it might be a human bone. She found it oddly easy to imagine Snape as a boy. After only two days in his parents' company she could understand why he might have retreated into solitary pursuits, finding the companionship between the pages of his books that he lacked in reality. And who would fault a child for reading, she thought ironically. Wasn't it supposed to be so desirable?

Didn't she use books as precisely the same wickedly effective combined defence and escape mechanism?

She forced that thought aside; analysing Snape was far better than examining her own life.

She swallowed.

She didn't want to be here, in this bizarre anachronism of a house, where they had grown out of decorations, where no presents were exchanged because it was pointless between adults.

"After all, we have everything that we want by now. It's just a waste of money." His mother again.

She wanted to be away from its residents who were so wrapped up in themselves that there was no room for anyone else. She wanted to be back at Hogwarts in the midst of the glitter and the warmth and more food than anyone could sensibly eat. She wanted to see Albus Dumbledore with a pink party hat on his head.

She wanted to be with Snape, she realised with a shock. She missed him. She missed having him to talk to, being able to bounce ideas off him, trading pointed remarks about his cosmetics business and her tea making skills. She missed sitting quietly reading or working, whilst he was absorbed in some experiment on the other side of the room.

There had to be some way of getting out of this minimum security version of Azkaban.

The news she received as she stepped through the door almost rekindled her belief in a benevolent divinity. Or at least in the omniscience of one school headmaster.

There was a letter waiting on the hall table, addressed to _Professor Severus Snape_. She picked it up and turned it over. It had a Hogwarts crest on the back.

Opening it, she read what, at that moment, were the most welcome words anyone had ever written to her.

 _Professor Snape,_

 _Your presence is required urgently back at Hogwarts. I would be grateful if you could return as soon as possible._

 _Merry Christmas,_

 _Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster._

Thank the gods, she thought in dizzy relief. She didn't much care what had come up; just so long as it was back at the school.

Snape's parents seemed to take the news philosophically. Or at least his mother did.

"You do seem to be very important, if he needs you this urgently."

Snape's father simply grunted again from his chair.

Gathering her things together she apparated with as much haste as was decent.

She reappeared back at the Hogwarts boundary, and her feet promptly sank into two feet of snow. She didn't care, she was home. This time she looked around her, appreciating the beauty of the glacial scene before her. She was about to head back to the castle when she heard footsteps crunching in the snow.

 _I don't care if it's Hooch. I don't even care if it's Alice Lacock._

It was neither.

"Did you have a pleasant stay, my dear?" A soft enquiry from the headmaster.

"Not particularly," she said with more truthfulness than tact.

"I rather gathered that Severus's house was less than welcoming."

Unwelcoming was not exactly how Hermione would have described it.

It was cold, a cold that had nothing to do with the tiny fires that struggled to survive in each grate.

"I suppose that any attention must seem desirable after that."

Hermione blinked. Dumbledore had given voice to the half-formed thoughts that had been swirling round her head for the last two days. Thoughts that had encompassed a young boy and the lure of the darkness.

"Severus always used to prime me to send him an owl after forty-eight hours, demanding his presence back at the school," Dumbledore went on, blithely. "I assumed that you would have a broadly similar need."

Something else that Snape hadn't told her. But this time she didn't want to kill him. No, this time she wanted to find him and put her arms around him and just hold him.

And knowing the man, she suspected that he might, in fact, find her original impulse marginally more preferable.

 _A/N: The title of this chapter was first appropriated by the late, great Douglas Adams as a book title. However, the origin of it lies with the late, equally great, comic genius, Tony Hancock._


	2. Chapter 2

**The Fire and the Rose Part 28**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 28 - My Name Is Snape, Severus Snape_

Snape yawned and stretched, waking slowly in the half-light that filtered through the ancient curtains at the window. A soft snuffle reminded him that he was not alone; turning his head, he saw the characteristic red hair of a Weasley spilling over a pillow in the bed on the other side of the room. It was, to say the least, disconcerting to share a room with Miss Weasley, although he should have been expecting it. Every Weasley in the family came home for Christmas, so the only way to accommodate a couple of guests was to double up - Harry shared with Ron, for which Snape thanked every deity available. He would have been beyond startled if Molly Weasley had expected him to share with the boys; somehow he had forgotten that there was a female junior Weasley, despite her presence in classes every week for the past few years. Well, until he had started taking classes from the other side of the teachers desk at the end of September.

Sharing the same room as Ginny Weasley had not, though, been the ordeal he had immediately imagined; the first evening had been an exercise in tension as he discreetly changed in a corner but, as the girl did the same thing, it would seem that it was not out of character for Hermione - certainly, he thought later, Hermione was not proving to be anything of an exhibitionist. Mr Longbottom's accident could have had far more serious consequences; not an original thought, admittedly. Snape felt the sentiment was more of a constant refrain in his life at the moment.

There was just enough light to read by - from the position of the dawning winter sun and the silence of the house, he estimated that it was somewhere around 8am. The Weasley family partied late and slept late over the holiday. Blessed peace and quiet. He was enjoying the holiday, more or less; not something he would willingly admit - nor, frankly, something he _should_ admit under normal circumstances, not unless he wanted to redefine his role, and probably his existence, rather drastically. Nonetheless, some peace and quiet and the chance to read in peace was welcome.

He had spent some time reading over the previous days - catching up on journals. No-one had commented, and it was hardly unusual to see Hermione with her head buried in a book, but it was not quite the same. Reading in the Weasley household required an effort of concentration that was decidedly tiring - intermingled conversations and constant movement made for a distracting environment. From time to time, the efforts of the boys - all of them, from Ron to Bill, with the merciful exception of that pompous idiot, Percy - had dragged him from the cocoon of words to the outside world, spilling into snowball fights, gnome-tossing and Molly Weasley's fretting that they would all catch colds.

So now, in the cold light of a late December morning and curled in the warmth of a faded patchwork quilt, Snape propped himself on one elbow and pulled a copy of _Monografias d'Alquimia_ from the bedside table and began to read. The solitude allowed him the luxury of reading in the original Spanish; the translation spells he had been casting - just in case anyone wondered where Hermione had managed to learn Spanish at Hogwarts or, worse still, expected her to know it after the mandrakes had matured and they had returned to what passed for normal - were fine, but didn't always catch the nuances in the original text.

An hour or so later, the house began to wake. The soft shufflings of Weasley parents were followed by the scent of coffee and toast; a louder set of shuffling suggested that Percy had decided that the Ministry would fall without his presence between Christmas and New Year. Just when Snape was about to make a dash for the bathroom - the one thing he would change about the Weasley house was the lack of washing facilities when all were home (well, perhaps not the only thing. Certainly the first thing, though) - he heard the unsubtle thuds and crashes that indicated that most likely belonged to Ron or Harry. Or both of them.

He let his head drop back onto the pillow and stifled a groan. A quiet chuckle from across the room made him realise that Ginny had woken at some point.

"I don't think anyone could ever describe Ron as delicate," she said.

"How do you know that was Ron?" asked Snape, looking over to her.

Ginny coloured slightly, and Snape raised an eyebrow at her apparent embarrassment."He and Harry sound different when they walk. And I've had a lot of years to get used to Ron's footsteps," she finished, adding the comment hurriedly.

Snape contemplated teasing her - the reaction to his question suggested that she gave the distinction between her brother and his friend more thought than she wanted others to know. He wondered whether Hermione would tease the girl and decided that, on balance, she wouldn't. Besides, it might lead to reciprocal teasing and he really didn't want to examine - or be forced to examine - where his own sentiments might lie.

The room fell into relative silence again as Snape and Ginny dozed, waiting for the tell-tale thumps that would indicate that the bathroom had been vacated again. Snape's thoughts returned to Hermione; it was Boxing Day now. Had Dumbledore taken his (hopefully) subtle hint and rescued Hermione yet? The conversation had been swift, in a corridor shortly before he left ...

 _"Good evening, Miss Granger. Looking forward to going to the Burrow for Christmas?" Dumbledore's question was innocuous - well, so it would seem to anyone else - and Snape looked at him for a moment, thinking through the response. Then he nodded._

 _"Yes, Headmaster . It'll be fun; I certainly won't be anxious to return to school." The comment was slightly out of character, but that couldn't be helped. As Dumbledore nodded, Snape hoped that meant that he had picked up on the emphasis on 'I'._

Dumbledore usually managed to find a reason to require him to return to school early whenever he couldn't avoid seeing his parents; there was no reason why he couldn't have done the same this time. Hermione would _not_ be impressed if she had had to deal with his parents for any extended length of time.

He could, of course, have put them off this year. Snape wasn't entirely certain why he hadn't - it was a spur of the moment decision, and probably payback for her not warning him that he was to go to the Burrow. It was childish and beneath him but nothing was to be done about it now.

Ginny's voice cut through his thoughts. "Ron's out now - if you run for it, you should get there before Harry wakes up." Snape duly ran for it.

Breakfast, later, was chaotic - the elder male Weasleys appeared to be nursing hangovers, blaming the port that Bill had liberated from somewhere on his way home. The youngest male Weasley - and Harry - were complaining because they had not been allowed to seek the opportunity to have a hangover. All of them, irrespective of headaches, were demolishing large cooked breakfasts - bacon, eggs, fried bread, mushrooms.

Snape sat back on his chair, one of his legs tucked under him, and watched the mock-debate and discussion ebb and flow around him as he drank his coffee. The breakfast didn't particularly appeal; he was, finally, becoming used to the demands and tastes of Hermione's body and contented himself with toast and honey.

The familial squabbling peaked and then burst into a flurry of preparations and searches for coats and shoes when Mr Weasley reminded Snape, Harry and his two youngest children that they were going to London with him - Arthur had to put in a few hours work, unwillingly, and had promised to take them with him by portkey. Harry had been singing the wonders of the cinema, and Ron and Ginny had pleaded to be allowed to go, as a Christmas present. Snape wasn't quite so enthused but, on the whole, he doubted whether he could come up with a convincing reason to stay behind. Hermione undoubtedly knew all about 'films' - and that was something that was causing a few tremors of fear: he would be expected to know what was going on and, whilst Hermione Granger undoubtedly did know, Severus Snape's knowledge of such things was extremely sketchy.

Snape's understanding of the male psyche, however, did surpass Hermione's and, in the end, trauma and discovery were largely avoided when he allowed Harry to show off his knowledge, particularly to Ginny. In the light of her embarrassment that morning, Snape watched the two of them with a slightly detached amusement, speculating to himself. He would have to tell Hermione when he got back to school; she would undoubtedly find it interesting and, probably, amusing. Snape entertained himself with crafting the story, hardly noticing what he was doing, as they headed away from the alleyway near in the Ministry into which the portkey had taken them.

The 'tube' was an experience he could live without, he decided after they had resurfaced from the stiflingly hot and uncompromisingly crowded subway. Paying a small fortune to be molested by strangers rubbing against you in the press of humanity was not something he wanted to repeat. Back in what passed for fresh air, he found Leicester Square sufficiently diverse as to make him wonder why the wizarding world went to such lengths to remain undetected. Most could wander through here without causing so much as a single turned head.

Harry led them to a large building, blank and grey against the blank grey London winter sky. Neon signs overhead proclaimed what Snape presumed to be titles of the films that Harry had been telling them about, and advertised a season of films from 1987 - apparently the year the cinema had opened. Snape wondered why they were celebrating such a short period of time; businesses in DiagonAlley measured their anniversaries in millennia - a decade seemed rather pointless.

At eye-level, pictures were displayed to entice the audience in - although Snape thought that they might be more successful in that task if they were like wizarding pictures and moving. As far as he could understand, from what he had read and Harry's explanations, the films were like extended versions of wizarding pictures - theatre on a screen. Theatre was something he did understand; he hadn't seen any in England, but there was a thriving theatrical culture in European wizarding society, coming from the operatic tradition in Italy.

Snape made himself pay attention to the present as the animated discussion beside him caught his attention.

"I am _not_ going to go and see explosions and people being killed," said Ginny firmly. Snape shuddered at the thought.

"What do you want to see, Hermione?" asked Ron, turning to Snape.

"What are the choices?" he prevaricated, not having paid much attention to the discussion.

"Lethal Weapon or The Living Daylights," said Harry.

"Or Dirty Dancing," added Ginny pointedly.

"Oh come on, Gin," said Ron irritably, "we don't want to watch you drool all over that Shway-whatever he was called." Harry seemed to be definitely in agreement with that comment, although he wasn't quite so obvious about it.

"And you think we want to watch - what was it you called it? A Bond film? Whatever that is, but what you said was enough - people getting killed and things being destroyed. I don't want to see that," said Ginny firmly. Snape thought that Harry wanted to persuade her, but wasn't quite sure how to do it.

"Well, there's a romance in it ... umm ... actually, maybe it's not exactly romance ..." Harry's voice trailed off for a moment. "Hermione, you decide!" he added in some desperation.

Snape scanned the pictures again, wishing they would move just a little and give him a better idea of what on earth the films were about. Finally, one caught his eye, looking at least as though it would be marginally more understandable than the others.

"How about the Princess Bride?" he said, looking at the other three. Ron and Harry looked back to the posters, and Ginny grinned. Snape wondered suddenly whether that was what she had been angling for all along; forcing a compromise by taking an extreme. It was interesting that she had thought Hermione would think the same way that Snape clearly had.

Finally they agreed, the boys rather reluctantly, and Harry went to the ticket booth to get tickets for them; it was a convenient way for him to pay for the Weasleys without them noticing. Once inside the cinema Harry led the way through the caverns there, checking for their seats in the echoing space. A moment's shuffle, and they were seated, with Harry and Ginny together and Ron and Snape on either side. Ron appeared a little put out by the arrangement; an arrangement that Snape had manoeuvered when it suddenly became obvious that the boy was hoping to sit next to him. He did _not_ want to consider Ron's motives for that particular hope.

The film was amusing, after all. Very like theatre, but with far more scope without the constraints of performance in a limited physical space. The initially childish scenario had developed well and Snape found himself laughing with the rest of the audience - not always, perhaps, for the same reasons. After all, the line "people in masks cannot be trusted" had more resonance for him than the others, for instance. Fezzik looked suspiciously as though he was a cousin of Hagrid's - and the other three fell about laughing when Snape muttered that observation to Ginny, who passed it on. Ron became strangely quiet at the sight of the Rodent of Unusual Size, but Snape was sure he heard a snicker from Harry.

Snape raised an eyebrow at the concept of _locaine powder_ , more so when he overheard Harry and Ron debating whether to ask Professor Snape about it in class next term. In the middle of the film, Snape found himself memorising lines to tell Hermione when he saw her next - things he knew she would find amusing, even when the trio next to him missed the humour in them.

The time passed much faster than Snape would have anticipated, and they spilled from the cinema still laughing, with Harry speculating as to whether he could face Voldemort with the line "Hello, my name is Harry Potter. You killed my father: prepare to die." Snape found himself joining the laughter, to his mingled surprise and disgust. Voldemort was not generally a topic that generated laughter. For a moment he thought to remonstrate, then realised that laughter was perhaps the best weapon they could have - provided they had every other weapon available. As long as none of them underestimated Voldemort, laughter would counter the fear that would otherwise stop them faster than the Dark Lord himself. It was an odd thought and he tried to push it away - to reassert his long-held conviction that Potter would die like his parents because he refused to take the threat of Voldemort seriously. He couldn't do it and, as they walked on laughing into the London evening, no longer tried.

The rest of the holiday was marked with more snow and warmth and, after another series of hangovers at New Year, Snape found himself back at Hogwarts. The dungeons were, mercifully, the same as ever and he found Hermione at her desk within an hour of his return.

"You survived, I take it," he drawled as he strolled into the room.

"Barely," came the muttered reply as she finished writing - presumably catching up on her project work. "I think I know every last inch of the sea front there."

"Ah," nodded Snape. "So you saw that small grey stone with the chip in it, about three feet down directly below the steps from the pub?" he said, drily.

The comment had the intended effect - Hermione put down her pen as she laughed, and turned to face him. "Was that a particularly important stone to you?" she asked with a smile. Snape smiled back.

Somewhere in the exchange they had moved towards each other; Snape suddenly realised he could feel the warmth from Hermione's body, almost touching his. A swift brush of mouth against cheek, unexpected and simultaneous. It was natural - he certainly hadn't planned it, and a proximity he had found appalling on the subway suddenly seemed ... pleasant was too mild a word and, rapidly, he took a step back. Too close, too much, too ... he didn't want to think about it.

When he looked up, he noticed Hermione was breathing fast - and so was he. They caught each other's eye and glanced away. Snape wondered whether he read the expression in her eyes correctly, or whether it was his own merely reflected.

"It's ... uh ... it's nice to have you back," said Hermione finally, her voice much less authoritative and more unsure than he had heard it in a long time. Clearly she hadn't expected or planned that any more than he had.

He nodded. "It's nice to be back." A banal statement, but it got them over the hurdle of unspoken thoughts and into a conversation that skipped through the holidays; an undoubtedly necessary conversation - they would each need to know what the other had done, when they switched back - but no less enjoyed because of that. Finally they fell into old patterns, caught up in their stories and easing away from the discomfort of tension.

Just before dinner Snape tore himself away from the dungeons, from the experiments that they had resumed in the midst of talking, and half-ran for the Hall to avoid being late. He was almost there when he had to check his pace abruptly to avoid stumbling over a Slytherin girl ahead of him.

Alice Lacock.

Snape debating striding past as if he hadn't noticed her. Too late; she had turned and spotted him. To his surprise, she went slightly red.

"Are you alright?" he asked, wondering whether she was ill - she looked slightly feverish, in fact.

"No," she mumbled. "It's nothing. Just .. nothing."

Snape took a breath and asked the question he didn't want to.

"Are you sure? It's nothing to do with ... what we talked about?"

The girl turned redder again, then nodded. Snape _really_ didn't want to know what she was thinking or plotting now.

"It's ... " she stumbled over the words, then pulled herself together. "It's just that ... well ... you know and, please -" she found her words in a rush, "please don't tell anyone. It was silly, and I met this boy over the holidays ..."

She stopped talking as Snape grinned suddenly, a rush of relief coursing through him. Hormones were wonderful things.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Fire and the Rose Part 29**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 29 - I Don't Like It, It's Too Quiet..._

The first two weeks of January passed in a state of eerie expectancy. Hermione couldn't say that things had returned to normal between her and Snape, mostly due to the lack of any benchmark against which to judge. They certainly hadn't gone back to pre-accident _normal_ ; she doubted if that would ever be achievable anyway. She had learnt too much about him - not to mention taken far too many liberties with his body - to simply reconsign him to the category of Miserable Sarcastic Bastard in her mind. But they hadn't really gone back to post-accident _normal_ either.

Their little greeting had seen to that, for Hermione at least.

Despite her alternating desires to hug and strangle Snape, she had had not the slightest intention of giving in to either. In fact, her plan had been to be very Snape-ish about the whole thing; off-hand and dismissive. Even if she _had_ made it her business to surreptitiously find out when Sirius was due to return Snape and the boys to Hogwarts. And even if she _had_ made sure that she was ensconced at her desk just when she knew he'd have shaken off Harry and Ron, judging that one of his first ports of call would be the dungeons - if only to check that she hadn't wrecked them in his absence.

She had been carefully cultivating her Snape-humour, when he had utterly turned it with his rueful comment about some particular stone on the beach, and then she hadn't been able to hide how pleased she was to see him. It hadn't been a hug, just a simple kiss on the cheek and then a startled withdrawal; to be followed by an even more startled realisation that the embrace had been something mutual and that his eyes had held a promise of something that had to have been her imagination.

She had struggled for words to cover the moment and stammered some mind-wrenchingly inane statement, trying not flinch in anticipation of the excoriating retort. But it hadn't come; the reply had been mild indeed and the conversation had mercifully moved on to safer topics.

 _Although who could have pictured Snape in a snowball fight? Or sitting through a Muggle film? Or receiving the confidences of Ginny Weasley without so much as a shudder?_

She smiled to herself. In some ways it was a shame that her friends would never be able to know; although she supposed that their embarrassment would outweigh the amusement value.

She and Snape had returned to their familiar patterns, yet they were not familiar any more. They still worked together, talked together, exchanged information and occasionally baited one another, but there was something else; at least for her. An awareness of him, a sense of him that pervaded her thoughts, unspoken acknowledgements of things that would irritate or amuse, a myriad of mental notes to share. And the curious feeling that at the end of the day there would be someone there who might glare and mutter, but who would listen and understand.

Their evenings were now more than a pleasure for her; they were a lifeline. And if their companionship ever went further in her mind, ever moved to soft whispers and touches; well, you couldn't stop a girl from thinking, could you?

In fact, this evening had been one for thinking those self-same thoughts. There had been moments when she could have sworn that he was watching her, very covertly. She, in turn, had been trying to observe him without him noticing. The more important he became to her, the more cautious she became about revealing herself; for every time that she thought she saw a flicker of response, there was another memory of his reaction to Alice Lacock. She did not want to be on the receiving end of _that_. Not ever.

In point of fact, she was more than grateful that Alice, herself, had managed to find another object of her interest over the Christmas break. It had been a mild relief to take points off the girl for eyeing up the Gryffindor boy during their joint potions lesson. Not that a Gryffindor would be any more acceptable in the Slytherin Common Room than the Head of House. She suspected that she - or Snape - hadn't seen the last of Miss Lacock.

Thoughts of Alice were a welcome distraction from the odd atmosphere of the evening. Whilst not unpleasant, her time with Snape had passed in an odd sort of carefulness.

Now she was back in rooms that almost felt like hers, trying to second, third and fourth guess the motives of a man who was not known for his personal transparency. She sighed and summoned a glass of water, wandering through to the bedroom. She put the water down next to the bed and began to unbutton her robes. She had long since overcome any unease with her current body, stripping easily down to her shorts, tossing her robe over a chair and making her way to the bathroom to wash up for the night. Finishing, she returned to the bedroom, with barely a glance in the mirror at her masculine self. She slipped under the covers, pulling the quilt around her shoulders. Whatever troubles the man himself might have, she found being in his environment curiously soothing. She drifted off to sleep curled in the ephemera of Snape's life,

She awoke from a confused dream that involved some kind of explosions - she thought it might have been fireworks. She came back to consciousness, heavy headed and disorientated, and gradually realised that the explosions had not gone away. Pushing herself up on one elbow she groped for her wand, and muttered _Lumos_ in a dull voice. The light inexplicably sharpened her hearing, and her brain processed the noise into the information that someone was knocking on her door.

This had better be important, she thought fuzzily as she clambered out of bed and pulled her discarded robe around her. She swallowed against the slight nausea that always came with traumatic awakening, grimacing at the taste in her mouth. She walked across to the door, trying to force her mind into Snape-tracks.

The hammering had not abated. More awake now and beginning to be genuinely irritated, Hermione opened the door. She was decidedly _not_ expecting that sight that greeted her.

The eternally unsavoury Argus Filch.

And behind him, three figures; in the dimness of the corridor she could just see that one had black hair, one had red hair and one had thick brown hair.

 _Of course. Who else would it be? And couldn't he have stopped them?_

"What," she said deliberately, annoyance not even remotely faked, "exactly are you doing here at...," she didn't even know what time it was for Gods' sake, "... this hour of the morning?"

"We found them," said Filch triumphantly, "they thought they could hide, but Mrs Norris sniffed them out, didn't you my love?" Hermione blinked and saw a faint gleam of red in the darkness. Although she was habitually predisposed to like anything even vaguely feline - she had, after all, adopted Crookshanks - she had an uncharacteristic vision of a pair of extra fluffy mittens.

"I can see that you have found them, Filch," she said with distaste, "what I fail to understand is what you expect me to do with them at... what time _is_ it precisely?"

"It's quarter to three, and they're breaking curfew."

"Another obvious point," she noted, "but again, I ask you, _what do you expect me to do at quarter to three in the morning?_ "

 _If that was a hint of a smirk I caught from Snape, he's going to suffer for it, I swear._

She glared in the direction of the "Head Girl" but Snape's expression was now carefully neutral.

"They should be dealt with," pronounced Filch with satisfaction.

 _I suppose that transfiguring the three of them into a nest of coffee tables is completely out of the question._

She focussed her attention past the gloating caretaker and on the Gryffindors - two native and one immigrant - in front of her, searching for the correct words. Harry and Ron were looking at her defensively, Snape was carefully avoiding her eye.

"Sir," he said, with a fairly good attempt at diffidence, "if I could explain..."

She nearly choked, mostly at the knowledge that intervening at that point was _precisely_ what she would have done.

" _Miss Granger,_ " she snapped, "fascinating as it will doubtless be, I have better things to do that stand around in the middle of night listening to fairy tales. You may provide that, and any other explanation you care to devise, tomorrow evening - I beg your pardon - _this_ evening in detention. Seven o'clock." A nasty thought arose in her mind, born of being unwillingly awake. "Now get back to your rooms, all of you." She paused deliberately, as they began to back away, dawning glee on the faces of the boys and something unreadable on Snape's that might just have been anxiety. As they turned away from her, she added pointedly, "and whilst you're passing by the Great Hall, be sure to note the one hundred and fifty points that will have been deducted from the Gryffindor House total."

Their reaction was well concealed but the slight break in the boys' step told her that she had hit home. Snape halted and turned back towards her. Before he could do or say anything, he was firmly grabbed by Harry.

"Come on, Hermione," he hissed, not very subtly, "you'll only make it worse."

"Wise advice, Mr Potter," she agreed blandly, but she could have sworn that Snape's eyes had held a spark of admiration. That thought warmed her more than she wanted to admit.

"What are you going to do to them?"

She had forgotten Filch, standing to her side, eyes shining with anticipation. It was a singularly unwholesome thing.

"That," she said repressively, "is for me to decide."

With that she stepped back into her rooms and firmly closed the door. She knew that Snape wouldn't care about her being rude to Filch, and she didn't care about her being rude to Filch either. It was one of the unexpected bonuses of her position. Even if being awake at three a.m. wasn't.

Which just left her to come up with some way of dealing with detention.

Detention had been one of those things that she had always managed to lay off to other people; Filch, Sprout, Hooch, Poppy Pomfrey - even Hagrid, on occasion - all of them could find suitably unpleasant ways of occupying someone's time. It wasn't that hard; all you had to do was make sure you played to the detainee's weakest subject. Hermione consoled herself with the thought that opportunity to work on weak areas was actually a benefit to them.

She had particularly tried to avoid giving Harry and Ron detention with her; leaving aside her natural loyalties, there were too many opportunities for her to make a mistake and for them to notice something amiss. And as she spent so much time in the company of Snape anyway, giving him detention with her was barely noticeable. However, Filch had backed her into a corner and she had been left with little choice.

She glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven o'clock and she still had that slightly disconnected feeling that came from a broken night. She could certainly count on them to be on time, given that Snape, in the guise of herself, would be shepherding them down here. They were both naturally punctual people, she thought idly. The second hand on the clock ticked its way round the clock face, and just as all the hands made the slight shift to signal the hour, there was a knock at the classroom door.

She waited a beat and then summoned them in.

The three of them entered, Harry and Ron exuding equal parts reluctance and resentment. Snape followed, with less than his usual enthusiasm, face oddly blank.

Of course, she thought, he could hardly dump his books on my desk and complain bitterly about whoever, whilst I make him coffee. She felt an odd sort of resentment of her own towards Harry and Ron - she doubted that Snape would have actually instigated a midnight excursion - who had contrived to spoil her evening.

The offenders themselves were milling rather uncertainly.

"Sit down," she said irritably.

They obediently took seats at the front of the classroom. Ron looked as if he was about to say something to Harry and then thought better of it; either that or Snape had finally managed to train him to respond to an elbow in the ribs. Snape, himself, settled his arm back on the top of the bench without a flicker of expression.

Well, this was it. Time for the disguised benefit principle to come into play.

She took her place at the front of the room.

"Mr Potter, Mr Weasley," she began, "I have - mainly by way of self-defence - been observing you this term. Whilst it would gave me personally a great deal of pleasure to think of you cleaning the cauldrons from today's first year classes by hand" - that was only partially an exaggeration - "for some reason I feel compelled to try to make this evening productive." She could have sworn that a muscle in Snape's face twitched for a moment. She looked at him hard, but he was intently studying the desktop. "Mr Potter, I would like you to prepare a Gnome Repellent and you, Mr Weasley, some Elixir de Chanteur." The boys blinked at this and Snape gave her a swift thoughtful look.

She had given this careful consideration. Both boys were capable, if not brilliant, at potions but they tended to be careless. Harry rushed through the preparation of his ingredients so that they were not fine or even enough; Ron prepared things well enough, but frequently failed to pay attention to the method, being inexact with measurements or combining steps to save time. She had never managed to persuade them - as Hermione - that things needed to be taken carefully. She would now have a go as Snape.

Neither potion was particularly difficult or even on the syllabus for that year. The Gnome Repellent was a handy staple, useful for those who didn't have the time or inclination to physically toss the pests off the garden. It was straightforward to make, but did require the ingredients to be very precisely prepared. The Elixir de Chanteur - almost a joke potion, giving the drinker the ability to make any vocal noise of their choice - was more forgiving of sloppy preparation; but the method had to be exact, otherwise you simply ended up with a potion that caused severe flatulence.

"Well," she said, "as you will not be leaving until the potions are correct to my satisfaction I suggest that you get started, instead of staring vacantly into space."

They got started.

Snape hadn't moved.

"And as for you, Miss Granger..." She had thought about this as well. Now that she had the perfect, unassailable opportunity for revenge, she had found that she didn't want to take it. "I have a private project that requires some attention." She gestured towards the experiments that she and Snape had been running. "I'm sure that your much vaunted abilities will enable you to work out what needs to be done."

Snape was already on his way over to the cauldrons. She might not be able to enjoy his company but there was no reason why the work should not continue.

The evening wore on. Harry and Ron, for the first time that Hermione could remember in either incarnation, were giving more than sixty percent of their attention to what they were doing. As a result, their potions were proceeding with surprising accuracy. Hermione swept behind them a few times, keeping an eye on what they were doing, but her attention was increasingly called to Snape, working quietly on their on-going experiments.

Eventually, she couldn't restrain herself any longer, judging that it would be reasonable for her to check on "Hermione's" work as well. Trying to maintain the same air of disdain that she showed to the boys, she moved over to the private working area, stopping when she could see him clearly without encroaching on his personal space.

At that moment the full force of his personality was focussed tightly into the task at hand. She watched him in silence, mesmerised by the hands that were and were not his, aware of the play of tendons and veins beneath the skin as he reached and selected and chopped and added and manipulated the ingredients before him. He endowed her with a grace that she didn't know that her body was capable of. There was a skill and deftness that came from him, a sureness of touch that sprang from years of experience, a confidence that was not hers, for all her knowledge. There was something so controlled about it that it almost frightened her; frightened her not because it was alien, but because it was so familiar.

There was the _potential_ for that to be hers, she thought. If he could do that with her hands, then so could she. She followed his movements as he swept up the last tiny fragments of chopped nettles, fingers dragging over the work top. She could almost feel the grain of the surface under the tips; she had always had sensitive fingers. Unconsciously, her tongue flicked out to touch her upper lip. She tried not to imagine those fingers sliding over his skin, under her control, exploring the now familiar contours with another touch, re-learning the feel of skin over bone, skin over muscle, skin over...

She hoped that the sudden rush of heat didn't show on her face.

"Miss Granger," she said softly, not wanting to attract the attention of Harry and Ron, "why don't you explain to me exactly what it is that you're so confidently doing."

She aimed for an edge, but even she could hear that whatever underlay her tone was definitely _not_ sarcasm.

He had given no sign that he was aware of her presence, but she noted a flinch and a slight catch in the breath that she chose to interpret as startled. There was the briefest of hesitations and then he began to explain the steps he was taking in the analysis of the mysterious potion. His tone of measured detachment brought her mind back on to a safer track; safer, but no less enjoyable. In many ways she derived as much academic pleasure from his company as she did personal.

The lecture was interrupted by a rather diffident announcement from Ron that he had finished his Elixir de Chanteur.

Snape put down the knife that he was holding and turned to face the boys, a carefully schooled expression of polite interest on his face. Hermione, herself, knew precisely what the correct course of action was.

"Would you care to demonstrate it for us?" Ron visibly hesitated. Hermione arched an eyebrow. "What, Mr Weasley? Don't you have faith in your own abilities?" She couldn't help herself; Ron wouldn't be harmed if the potion had failed, and this _was_ rather fun. She promised herself that she would feel guilty about it later.

Gingerly, Ron poured a dose of the potion into a goblet and lifted it to his lips. Eyes closed, he drank. Carefully he placed the goblet back on the bench and looked at Hermione mutely.

"You have to make some kind of noise," she informed him. "How else are we to judge your work?"

Ron looked as if he might have been offering up some kind of silent prayer and then opened his mouth. A resounding cock-crow echoed around the room. An expression of profound relief settled over his face.

Hermione strove not to show any kind of reaction at all, simply turning to Harry, who gestured in turn at his cauldron. She strode over to look at it; it appeared to be the right colour and consistency.

"I can see nothing immediately wrong," she said, making herself sound as grudging as she possibly could. "Bottle it and take it with you. Report to Professor Sprout tomorrow to test it and bring a signed note from her to your next potions class. If it fails, you may consider Gryffindor House as possessing another ten fewer points. You may leave as soon as you have decanted the potion."

If there was a World Potions Bottling Speed Record, Hermione was in no doubt that she was watching it being broken. With even more alacrity than usual Harry and Ron were cleared up and ready to go. Snape was also tidying away, although with rather less enthusiasm, it appeared to her. But then again, that could also have been her imagination.

"Miss Granger," she said, wanting at least _some_ private conversation with him that evening, "a word about your project, if I may."

Harry and Ron paused, clearly desperate to leave but showing some kind of reluctant protective instinct.

"Go," said Snape waving at them. "I'll see you back in the Common Room."

With ill-concealed relief, the boys fled.

Hermione and Snape looked at each other as the sound of the banging door died away to leave the room in silence.

"You do it on purpose, don't you?" she said eventually. "You enjoy watching me take house points from Gryffindor, knowing that if Slytherin win the house cup this year, a Gryffindor will have helped them to do it."

There was no real heat in her voice; if anything it was closer to resigned humour.

"I commend you on a very Slytherin analysis, Hermione, but actually, no. My motive was not to force you deduct points from your friends." A small smile twitched the corner of his mouth. "Although, there are benefits to every situation."

She felt the corner of her mouth tug in response.

"So what was it?" she asked. "You were going to give me an explanation as I recall."

He moved back from her, leaning on one of the desks.

"Mr Potter received an anonymous note, suggesting that Mr Malfoy might be up to no good, and that Mr Potter might have a chance to catch him in the act, as it were."

"And Harry would never be one to pass up that kind of opportunity," she sighed in understanding. "With Ron right by his side," she added. Her brow creased in thought. "I'm surprised they involved you, though. I wouldn't have been very keen on that sort of thing." Her mouth twitched again. "I would probably have marched them straight off to Professor McGonagall."

Snape nodded, with another faint smile.

"I _did_ suggest it - on a number of occasions. However, I was - ah - overruled." He suddenly became serious. "And I chose not to press the point. If Mr Malfoy is involved in... nefarious activities... then I have a certain - professional - interest in knowing about it. Just in case they stray beyond the normal inter-house rivalries."

Hermione felt herself go a little cold. He had stressed the word _professional_ in a way that made her think that he wasn't referring to his duties as a Hogwarts teacher. He needed to know whether or not Draco Malfoy was actively working on behalf of Voldemort. It was a sharp reminder of the seriousness of their position.

"And are you denying that you enjoyed the chance to finally get Mr Potter and Mr Weasley's undivided attention?"

His sudden change of tack jolted her; he must have read the expression on her face. And there was something about his tone of voice that made her suddenly wonder exactly what he had noticed about her life.

"Well, it certainly made a change," she said, trying to make a joke of it. "It mostly goes in one ear and out the other. I shall be astounded if tonight lasts as long as the next class."

Snape moved to collect his books.

"I should get back to the Common Room. I wouldn't want to miss out on another incisive critique of "my" personality and teaching habits."

She nodded, knowing that he was right but still reluctant for him to go.

He paused on his way to the door, looking back at her.

"That was well done, Hermione."

And before she could gather herself to respond, he was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Fire and the Rose Part 30**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Chapter 30 - A Living Fire That Only Death Might One Day Cool_

Snape was curled in a chair in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room; long practice as a student, then a teacher, and now as a student again meant that he could block out the chaotic jumble of words - jokes, gossip, questions, insults and mumblings - that flowed through the room. His shins warmed by the fire, he buried himself in the arcane texts of a book he had re-discovered in the Library; a text on Transfiguration which he had vague memories of having been very useful when he had been a seventh-year the first time around. He was absolutely certain that the mandrakes would work when they matured, so that he wouldn't be faced with NEWTS in the summer. Absolutely certain. But, all the same, the book found its way into his bag, and then into his hands.

Had anyone seen him reading a Transfigurations book normally, the story and accompanied gossip would have fled around the school in moments - owls would lose any race against the Hogwarts grapevine. Severus Snape was well known to barely acknowledge Transfiguration as a skill. The sight of Hermione Granger reading a book on Transfigurations, however, raised no eyebrows and caused not the slightest flicker of gossip. It would probably have been more remarkable if she _hadn't_ been reading a book. Any book.

Very few realised that the same was true of Snape.

Concentration - and a determination to deconstruct the Middle English of the writer - meant that Neville Longbottom had probably been waiting for some time beside the chair, waiting to be noticed. That, though, was undoubtedly something that the boy was used to, Snape thought when he finally realised that someone was standing beside him.

He had, one way and another, largely managed to avoid Longbottom outside the classroom over the last few months. No matter how accustomed he became to being Hermione, to taking on the persona and personality of an 18-year-old girl, he was absolutely certain that he would never become accustomed to having to deal with Neville Longbottom. He was coming to believe that at least part of the reason was that Hermione herself had never become accustomed to having to deal with him.

Six years of supporting the boy through Potions classes hadn't, apparently, inured her to him and his incompetence. Snape had had to bite back amusement at her mutterings regarding Mr Longbottom since the beginning of this whole farago. That she was annoyed with the boy after the accident wasn't surprising - he would have been deeply suspicious if she had treated it with more equanimity - but that she should continue to abuse Mr Longbottom under her breath after class was a surprise. He hadn't specifically asked her, but it was reasonably clear that Hermione didn't count Neville as one of her favourite people.

Snape resigned himself to the inevitable.

"Neville," he said at last, finally lookinq up from his book. "Can I help you?"

The words alone made him cringe. He had taken the challenge of being Hermione Granger with trepidation - fear for one's life is remarkably motivating - and, on the whole, he had adjusted to it a damn sight better than he would predicted. Worryingly so, in fact. If he had more time to think about it ... perhaps it was as well that he didn't.

None of which, unfortunately, had made Neville Longbottom go away and - despite his question - Snape knew _exactly_ what the boy wanted.

Coaching.

This was, without any doubt whatsoever, the worst thing about being Hermione Granger. Even enduring a menstrual cycle was less trying - although not by much.

"Um, Hermione, could you go through the work we did in Potions today with me? I didn't quite follow what Professor Snape was talking about - I can't understand what he means most of the time."

The irony of that statement was not lost on Snape, but he shut his book and resigned himself to the loss of the rest of his evening. The class had centred on a reasonably straightforward potion - a strengthening potion, involving rock oil, mistletoe cut with a golden sickle and lobster. It was one of the few potions that was vaguely palatable.

Hermione had gone on to develop the theme of the last few classes - substitution of ingredients, in this case testing the efficacy of the usual substitution of beetroot juice for the rock oil in the potion. There was nothing particularly difficult about any of it, and the potion itself was not unusual. It gave a short-lived burst of strength to the user - not as effective as it could be, since the potion also generally caused the drinker to glow momentarily and that was something of a giveaway that tended to warn anyone in the vicinity of what had just been drunk.

Snape didn't usually teach that particular potion - it wasn't practical and time was short - but Hermione had argued that it was a memorable way to teach substitutions; students generally didn't forget the experience of seeing one another glow. He had given in, with bad grace, warning her that he would be watching to make sure she didn't allow the class to degenerate into amusement.

The bad grace was largely to mask the raging envy that he hadn't thought of the same technique before, and he rather suspected that Hermione knew it. She knew him entirely too well; and perhaps not as well as he would like. There definitely wasn't time to pursue that particular train of thought. Neville still stood beside the chair, waiting for him.

The boy had borne - as often - the brunt of Hermione's sarcasm today; he was completely incapable of doing anything right. Snape wondered whether things simply went through the boy's head without stopping. Lingering resentment regarding the accident that had ensured that he ended up in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room in an 18-year-old girl's body did not improve his view of Mr Longbottom.

Snape uncurled that particular body from the comfort of the armchair and stood to face Neville; he was still taller than him, even in this guise. Perhaps that had something to do with the boy's discomfiture, but Snape suspected that discomfiture was actually part of his natural character, regardless of whom it was that he was facing.

"Right. Where do you want to do this? In here, or one of the classrooms?" He knew that Neville preferred the common room, even though they normally moved to one of the classrooms when the racket in Gryffindor Tower became too much.

Neville nodded at the question. "One of the classrooms. Quidditch practice will be over soon."

An excellent reason for removing themselves from the common room. That much adrenaline and testosterone - from the girls on the team as well as the boys, or so it seemed - did not make for a pleasant environment in which to pummel some knowledge into Mr Longbottom.

"How about the potions classroom?" suggested Snape, an impassive face hiding the amusement at the horror that flickered over Neville's face. He continued, before Neville could speak. "It would give me an opportunity to check on my project work at the same time - and we might be able to check some of the problems you're having in practice, not just in theory."

Neville swallowed. "Won't - won't Snape mind?"

"I don't think he'll say anything. He's had to put up with me traipsing in and out of there regularly this year, what with the work on this project." Snape wondered whether Neville had noticed the evasion.

Whether he had or not, Neville still looked extremely unconvinced at the wisdom of heading for the potions classroom out of hours. He made no more vocal protest, though, and trailed after Snape as he headed out past the Fat Lady to negotiate this evening's arrangement of the staircases.

Finally, the dungeon staircases welcomed them, reassuringly static in the near-darkness, and Snape led the way to the classroom. He knocked swiftly then opened the door; enough time to warn Hermione that he was coming in, and the knock should have alerted her to the fact that he was not alone.

She looked up as he entered the room, a sourly puzzled expression on her face. Snape wondered what the problem was - she hadn't been at dinner, and he had been surprisingly distracted by her absence. He refused to think about that fact that he thought about her so much. Denial was a virtue - and if it wasn't, then he would make it so.

"Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom. To what, precisely, do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Dark sarcasm indeed. Snape fought a grin, dampening it with more concern at the grating edge of ... something ... in her voice.

"I needed to check the project work, Professor - the main potion needs stirring this evening - and Neville asked for help with something."

"Why am I not surprised? Well, Mr Longbottom, at least you had the grace to do so without disrupting the class. Very well, you know where things are."

Snape nodded and led Neville through the classroom to the laboratory off to the side; it was half-lit with flickering sconces in the walls. This early in the year, the sun set so early that the dungeons were dark for more than half the day despite the extensive windows let into the cliffside of the school.

Several cauldrons in various sizes were set over fires here, the orange-red glare of the flames vivid in the dusk of the room; the contrast diminished as Snape spelled the sconces to full light, and the cauldrons looked less like the mouths of hell and more like a lunch-time soup.

Neville stared around the room blinking, apparently startled by the sight of the work that was being done in here. Snape supposed that he would have had no opportunity to see this room - or, indeed, to see a full-blown experimental process underway. A kernel of an idea formed, and he tucked it away for the future. He doubted that Hermione would be comfortable with including experimental techniques in her lesson plans, so it would have to be something for the future - but potions-creation would vary the syllabus somewhat. The students might not appreciate it, but it would vary what had become too predictably routine.

Snape caught himself mid-laugh and turned it into a cough; Neville was looking at him very oddly. _Predictably routine_ .. oh yes, so completely predictable that he regularly exchanged bodies with a seventh-year student. Good grief, he was getting far too self-contemplative. Teenage female hormones were odd things.

"Sorry, caught something at the back of my throat."

Neville seemed to take that explanation at face value, and Snape turned his attention to the cauldrons in front of him. He took a few minutes to make the necessary adjustments, then returned his focus to Neville.

"Ok, let's get this sorted out; tell me what you did understand about the lesson." That would undoubtedly be shorter than asking what he had not understood.

They worked through the problem slowly; Snape was aware that Hermione was watching them from time to time, looking up from the pile of work on her desk. Neville probably thought it marking; Snape knew it to be the Arithmancy homework that he would be expected to hand in tomorrow. He still had the marking to do this evening; it was going to be a late night because he would also need to review Hermione's Arithmancy work - not for accuracy, she hardly needed him to check for that, but simply because he might be expected to know what was in it. This was no sinecure - he might not have to study as such, but he had far less free time as Hermione than he did as himself.

The rest of the evening passed in a flurry of undertones and explanations, finishing up with a discussion of the respective merits of silver and gold which Snape was fairly certain went straight over Neville's head. Nonetheless, it should reinforce his understanding that it was _gold_ which would be needed to cut the mistletoe for the strengthening potion, even if he didn't quite grasp the effect of the molecular structure of the gold on the chemical composition of the mistletoe.

And - if he allowed reality to intrude - Snape well-knew that Neville Longbottom would never in his life attempt to make a potion after he left Hogwarts. As long as he knew enough to get through NEWTs, that would be all he would need to know. Depressing, but true.

Neville escaped once the study session was over, heading back to Gryffindor with only a token attempt to persuade 'Hermione' to come with him. He readily accepted the excuse that the project needed more work, allowing that to over-ride his natural inclination to try to protect the female of the species.

Snape puttered around the cauldrons in peace after Neville had left, soothed by the gentle hissing and bubbling of the work around him. He relaxed slowly, eased by the familiar, and finally turned to Hermione.

He had resisted close contact with her after that unexpected kiss at the start of term; some things were just better not thought about. It had to be a mistake; he hadn't thought the way he did, and she could not have reacted the way he thought he had seen. But some still part of Snape's mind reminded him that he did think that way. Whether he had seen more than just a reflection of his own desires in Hermione's eyes was something else altogether. He could not - would not - summon the ego required to believe it.

None of that stopped the flash of a dreamt picture that stole through his thoughts at the most inappropriate times - as well at more appropriate times. A picture of two people: one male, tall, dark and lean, the other female, with long hair and softly curved. The picture intertwined them and, if he gave it free rein, twisted and writhed over the gossamer white of sheets with an erotic charge that could - and did - leave him gasping at night in the safety of his bedroom, caught between the image and the half-reality.

As he came back into the classroom, locking and warding the laboratory behind him, Snape noticed Hermione rub absently at her arm. Her left arm.

"Are you alright?" he asked, cautiously. There were some questions he dreaded, some answers he hoped never to hear.

"Hmm?" Hermione lifted her head. "Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You're - you're rubbing at your arm." Put that way, it did sound odd.

"It's itching - burning slightly. I must have spilt something on it earlier; the Hufflepuffs weren't as careful as they could have been."

Snape felt himself go cold and shivered; force of will overrode shock, though, and he brought himself to sense with a deep breath.

"Can I have a look?" he asked, eventually. Better to know for sure than to fear in ignorance.

Hermione looked a little surprised at the request; the expression sat oddly on his features. Then she shrugged, took off the robe and coat that she wore and rolled up the sleeve on her left arm, presenting the arm for his inspection. She was watching him, and Snape rather thought that she was thinking about something else. His ego thought she might be thinking about him - but that was something to ponder another time.

Silence. He had no words, and the suddenly profound silence drew Hermione's gaze to her arm as well. Snape heard nothing; not even the ambient noise of brewing potions and a thousand-year-old school. Or Hermione's harsh gasp.

On Hermione's arm, in stark relief against the blue-white skin, was the blackening shadow of a skull with a snake for a tongue.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Fire and the Rose Part 31**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 31 - The Sound of the Other Shoe Falling_

Even faced with the incontrovertable reality, there was some part of her that still did not connect the increasing discomfort in her arm with the darkening tattoo; its presence had become so familiar to her that over the months she had almost come to disregard it. Or, if not precisely _disregard_ it, at least repress any conscious consideration of its significance. Therefore, when her arm had begun to itch, and then ache, and then burn, she had simply put it down to careless students. When Snape had asked to see her arm she had mentally queried his motivation, her mind supplying a number of interesting possibilities - but not this one.

Making full use of the apparently unique ability of the human mind to generate self-delusion, she had simply managed to persuade herself that as the summons had not yet happened, it never _would_ happen.

The Mark on her arm was currently busily dispelling that little myth.

She looked at Snape, praying that she was wrong, seeking some slender chance that there was another explanation for this, other than the obvious one; the one that involved a visit with...

His face was white and set, telling her that there was no convenient alternative; no solution that would rescue them in the nick of time. She met his eyes and for a long moment there was complete stillness. She could see emotions, uncharacteristically exposed, but her brain was too frozen to be able to analyse what they meant. He made an almost imperceptible movement and for an instant she thought that he was going to reach for her, but he abruptly turned away and stood up, breaking both eye contact and the uneasy feeling of stasis.

"Follow me," he snapped.

Numbly, she obeyed, not even bothering to roll her sleeve down.

Swiftly, he led her to his - her - rooms, hustling her through the door and across the living area into the bedroom. Awareness of the meaning of the pain in her arm seemed to have intensified it. From the elbow down the limb felt bloated and alien; something disconnected from her and not entirely under her control. It was almost a surprise when it responded instinctively, taking hold of the garments that Snape roughly pushed in her direction; among them a cloak and a mask - two things she had not found when exploring his rooms previously.

"Put these on." Another terse command, cold and off-hand.

Swallowing, she refastened her shirt and put on the less sinister of the items - the fresh jacket and robes that Snape had also dumped in her arms. She glanced down at her left sleeve, half expecting the Dark Mark to be visible through the cloth. It looked no different to her right one.

"The Mark been there since you were eighteen. One would think that the novelty of it would have worn off by now."

Instinctively, she straightened a little. The high-handed, almost contemptous tone was insulting, but steadying; any hint of sympathy would have had her curling up on the floor, whimpering. Snape, meanwhile, appeared to have retrieved everything that he - or, more properly, she - needed and was heading back out of the bedroom. He paused at the threshold to glare at her over his shoulder.

"In your own time, _Professor_."

She considered the mask and the cloak for a moment and then her returning common sense told her that she couldn't apparate from his rooms and she could hardly walk the corridors of Hogwarts dressed as a Death Eater. She concealed the mask under the heavy folds of material and followed him.

They covered the distance between the dungeons and the boundary of Hogwarts in what felt like record time. Hermione forced herself to concentrate on the barrage of staccato instructions that Snape was giving her as they swept through the corridors and out into the night. The snows of Christmas had melted to be replaced by a sharp stinging rain that seemed colder. She barely registered the chill or the wet as they approached the cursus of the school.

When they finally stopped Hermione was slightly out of breath, partly due to the adrenaline and partly the exertion. She made a conscious effort to return her breathing to something like normal. It wouldn't do to arrive in front of... _him_... puffing like the Hogwarts Express.

"The rest of it," Snape said shortly.

She unwrapped the mask and shrugged on the cloak. It settled snugly around her shoulders and fell to the ground in incongruously graceful folds. Reluctantly, she put the mask over her face. Her peripheral vision narrowed, and Snape retreated to being merely a shadow in a night that was now defined by two eye holes.

"Where do I go?" It was the first words she had spoken since he had looked at her arm in the dungeons.

"Just apparate. The Mark will take you to the correct location."

She nodded and slowly drew the hood up over her head.

Snape looked at her, apparently having run out of things to say. Then he reached forward and gently adjusted the hood of the cloak, pulling it further forwards to better conceal her face. Then he stepped away from her.

"I'll be here when you get back."

Apparating without a visualised destination was a nerve-racking business, Hermione decided. Sufficiently nerve-racking that it - for a _very_ brief moment - took her mind off what might be awaiting her at the end of the trip. That distraction, and the desire to make a convincingly smooth appearance, almost made her first sight of a Death Eater gathering an anti-climax.

Almost.

She apparated into a dark clearing - _he likes to hold his meetings at night, preferably in the open air - the lack of any fixed location makes him that much harder to track_ ; she heard Snape's voice in her head, coldly instructing her. Her eyes, already accustomed to the night, quickly made out figures within the shadows, grouped in a loose circle. Moistening her dry lips, she wondered which one was... Voldemort. She forced herself to think his name. She wasn't going to get very far with this deception if she couldn't even _think_ the name of the lord that she was supposed to serve. Voldemort, she thought again. _Voldemort._

As if the thought had truly alerted the owner of the name, a hissing voice sounded into the darkness.

"Severus. I'm so glad that you you could join us."

And all thoughts of anti-climax fled.

Harry had, from time to time, attempted to describe Voldemort to her and Ron, but he had always floundered. Hermione now understood why. The Dark Lord was certainly ugly - bleached bone white skin, burning red eyes, serpentine nose - but there was more than that. A crackling _presence_ that spoke of intense power and a fierce desire to dominate. She knew, in a way that was beyond conscious, that this was a creature with no ethical or moral boundaries whatsoever, and moreover, one possessed of total self-knowledge; one who knew precisely what he was, who embraced it, forged it and wielded it as a weapon.

It was repulsive and terrifying and utterly compelling.

She sank to her knees, obeying Snape's voice in the back of her head, unwilling to examine how much of her action sprang from other impulses within her. She crawled across the ground towards the standing figure. With a hand that was trembling very fractionally, she grasped the hem of Voldemort's robe and kissed it. She could hardly swallow again at this point, and betray her nervousness. She murmured "master... master...", her dry throat roughening her voice. Then she backed away, stood up and took a place in the circle, hoping to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Voldemort watched her intently as she moved into her chosen position and for a hideous moment she thought that he was going to address her. _Don't speak unless he speaks to you first. Then make your answer as short as possible. Use as many honorifics as you can get in, but be careful not to overdo it - Voldemort is evil, not stupid_ \- Snape again. That was going to be easy advice to follow, she thought, standing upright, forcing herself to breathe evenly and not to shake. Then there was the swish of a cloak in the darkness and Voldemort's attention was distracted. He turned away, and it was as if a tangible force had been removed from her.

The new arrival gave her the opportunity to try to get her bearings, as much as that was possible. Concentrate, she told herself firmly. Note the details. It may be useful when you get back. _Yes, that's it. Think of getting back. Think in terms of survival_. She made herself look around, deliberately recounting the scene to herself in her head, distancing her mind from anything that hinted of emotion or reaction. Describe it like an experiment, she thought, like a scene from a film or a play; do a critique.

It was a clearing, that much she had established. The air was still chill although the rain appeared to have ceased. In fact, the ground she had crawled over had been dry, although cold and hard. She moved her head as if she was easing a stiff neck, and tried to sneak a look over the treetops at the sky; it was clear and her brief glance showed a familiar pattern of stars. She surmised that they were probably in England, possibly towards the South. The air had a crisp woody smell to it, and in the distance she thought she heard a very soft whinny. That would provisionally place them somewhere in the New Forest, she thought, unable to stifle a fleeting sense of triumph at having solved a problem, even under these conditions.

Heartened by that small piece of analysis, Hermione turned her attention to the rest of the scene in front of her. The other figures in the darkness were waiting as she did; in silence, waiting for instruction. It appeared that the Death Eaters did not go in for idle conversation. She found this something of a relief; she didn't think that she was up to making social chit-chat with a group of psychopathic power-junkies.

It's a shame staff meetings aren't a bit more like this, she found herself thinking and then abruptly pulled herself up short at her flippancy. This wasn't some midnight trip with Harry and Ron; lives were at stake - hers and Snape's to be precise. She suddenly realised exactly what it was about the three of them that so infuriated Snape; not their belief in their own invulnerability, but their lack of appreciation of just how grave the repercussions of their actions could be - not to themselves, but to others.

The thought of Snape gave her pause.

 _I'll be here when you get back._ Emphasis on the _when_

He expected her to get through this. More, he _trusted_ her to get through this; trusted her not to act without consideration of the consequences, because if she did they were _both_ dead. Her heart lurched for a moment, all levity gone. When the charade had started, she had acted to protect him because to do otherwise would have gone against her own personal ethics. But now... Now, protecting him was as important to her as saving her own life.

Her chance to pursue this insight was cut short by Voldemort's voice; clearly all the expected attendees had arrived.

"Gather closer, my Death Eaters, for we transact important business this evening."

The figures in the shadows drew closer. Hermione did as they did, noting that they were thirteen in total. Were it not for the gruesome subject matter, it could have been any committee business meeting anywhere in any world, Muggle or magical. There were details of recent activities, persons that the Death Eaters were watching and some heavily cryptic hints of things to come in the future. Hermione concentrated intently on memorising every word, not knowing if some chance remark would make sense to Dumbledore or Snape.

"And what of Hogwarts, Severus? How goes our work there?" She felt the full force of Voldemort's personality fall on her.

Her throat went dry again and she was conscious of the mask sitting uncomfortably on her face. Deliberately thinking past what was about to happen, she raised her head as she had seen the others do.

"It progresses, my Lord. I see many promising candidates in Slytherin House." Her heart was beating so fast that she was astonished that it couldn't be heard in her voice. She tensed her body and forced her voice into her throat to keep the volume and steadiness. It harshened the tone painfully, but Voldemort didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"And the plans of the Other Side. What of them?"

Hermione tried to sound dismissive.

"The Old Fool amuses himself with parties and jokes and sweets, master, believing that these will be enough to hold back the inevitable. He has no strategy and no plan. He seems to place his entire faith in that Potter brat."

She hoped that was enough. Snape had given her the "party line" on the staff and students at Hogwarts.

Voldemort smiled and his eyes sparked; it made the hairs prickle on Hermione's neck.

"Ah yes, Harry Potter. How is he faring at the moment?"

She fought not to swallow; she hadn't wanted to draw Voldemort's attention to Harry. Thinking of Snape, of Harry, of all she loved at Hogwarts, she met the scarlet gaze of the Dark Lord.

"Arrogant as ever, master" she managed, forcing her voice even more. "He believes that he is a match for you and his acolytes encourage that ignorant belief. He has become indolent and slapdash."

That piece of information appeared to delight Voldemort.

"Splendid," he crowed. "An arrogant opponent is a weak opponent. He will learn his error and die."

"Of course, master," she murmured under cover of the sounds of approval from the other Death Eaters. She braced herself for more questions, but the Dark Lord appeared to be satisfied with her responses.

He stepped away from her and back into the centre of the circle, although his gaze did not move from her direction, nor did his pleasure appear to diminish.

"And now we come to the serious business of the evening." She didn't dare look away in case it was interpreted as weakness, or worse - disrespect. "My Death Eaters, it is my sad duty to inform you that we have... a _traitor_ in our midst."

Hermione went ice cold, her earlier confidence evaporating, leaving the carefully buried terror exposed and quivering. She heard snatches of Voldemort's remarks past the roaring in her ears and the certain knowledge that she was about to die.

 _... information... Other Side... trusted... betrayal... death..._

She wondered if it would be quick. She wondered if it would hurt. She wondered if Snape would ever forgive her.

She remembered the oddly caring way he had settled the hood around her face before she left - _I'll be here when you get back_ \- and with an effort she pulled herself upright. If she was about to be tortured and killed, she would face it with some kind of dignity. For the honour of both Gryffindor _and_ Slytherin.

Voldemort had apparently finished his diatribe, for his gaze swept the company.

"Step forward - Rudd."

Hermione could feel the muscles in her leg tense; the slight shifting of weight to one side that prepared the body to move forward without losing its balance. She felt every single tiny impulse through her nervous system, saw herself take that literally fatal step into the circle, before her brain shut the process down with the improbable information that Voldemort had spoken someone else's name.

Mercifully, the attention of the rest of the Death Eaters was focussed on the figure that took a few staggering paces to collapse on its knees before Voldemort; her slight shift in position went unremarked. She, too, watched the man - Rudd - as he alternately denied his faithlessness and begged for his life. Voldemort let him continue for a few moments - long enough that he might think that there was some chance of mercy - but but both refutation and plea were ultimately ignored.

She had the answers to at least two of her questions. It was not quick. Neither was it painless.

She watched as the man who was Rudd writhed under _Crucio_ until blood seeped from his eyes and his ears and his mouth, and his fingers were torn to the bone from his useless clawing at the ground. She watched as his mask and hood fell away, revealing a vaguely familiar face - a distant, detached part of her mind thought that he might have been a Hogwarts prefect when she was in her first year; whether that meant that he was another one of Dumbledore's hidden spies, or simply a scapegoat, set up by Snape to take the blame in case any of his activities were discovered - and Snape was more than capable of doing that - she didn't know. She watched, learning for the first time how it was possible, even necessary, to observe without intervention; there was no action that she could take that make the slightest difference to Rudd's fate and she would simply get herself killed. Her life was hers to deal with as she pleased, but Snape's was not and neither were those who might be saved by the information that she had gathered here tonight.

She watched, wondering whether the same fate awaited her, when Voldemort had tired of this particular sport.

Her mind gradually dissociated itself from any feeling part of her to such an extent that she felt as if she were becoming two separate people. It was within this bizarre stereo world that she registered the words _'Avada Kedavra'_ and knew that it was finally over for Rudd. Voldemort looked at the robe-covered carcass in front of him, and kicked it once. "Avery, Crabbe - deal with this." Two figures moved forward quickly, murmuring obedience.

Hermione waited, still braced against the pain that had not yet come. Voldemort looked around the assembled Death Eaters again, this time with a hint of fatigue and almost of distaste.

"Learn from this night," he hissed. "Treachery will not be tolerated. Now go. I weary of the sight of you."

From the detached part of her, she noted that the other Death Eaters were begining to move away, leaving only Avery and Crabbe dealing with the remains of Rudd. Clearly, they had no more desire than she to remain in the presence of their lord. Copying their movements, she backed away until she was entirely hidden by the trees, telling herself that all she had to do was get back to Hogwarts, all she had to do was perform one simple apparation, all she had to do was stay standing long enough to get away from this place.

She closed her eyes and visualised the spot from which she had departed earlier that evening, when she had been so much younger.

When she opened her eyes again, it was cold and raining and the boundary wall of Hogwarts stood in front of her.

And the world shattered around her, and the fragments of mind and feeling returned to crashing wholeness.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Fire and the Rose Part 32**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 32 - Put Aside Childish Games_

Snape looked at Hermione for a moment, silent as he held back the endless tumble of warnings and cautions and near-panic that chimed through his thoughts. Then he reached forward and gently adjusted the hood of the cloak, pulling it further forwards to better conceal her face. Then he stepped away from her.

"I'll be here when you get back."

A moment later he was alone; Hermione had disappeared into the disguise of a Death Eater and then disappeared altogether. Snape became aware of the freezing rain stinging his face and soaking his clothes. He shivered once in the sleet and then found he couldn't stop shivering; nothing, though, would induce him to leave and seek the warmth of the castle. Sense would have remembered to bring a coat when heading outside in late January; sensibility had thought of nothing but Hermione and what she would have to face.

Panic overtook him for a moment; age and training could offer little resistance to the teenage hormones that his subconscious insisted on stirring. Adrenaline spiked in the primeval fight or flight and he stood frozen, caught between both impulses and able to obey neither - his promise to Hermione overrode all other considerations.

The blank fear and fright was over almost as soon as it had begun; Snape shook himself out of physical, unplanned, response and began to pace. He told himself that he needed to keep moving, to stay warm - the shivering refused to go away, no matter how he held himself. A small circuit on the frozen ground took him between trees; this part of the school boundaries was far enough from the Forbidden Forest to be relatively safe, but far enough from the Quidditch grounds and other more populated areas that he took little risk of discovery. Assuming he wasn't out here too long.

Five minutes - it had only been five minutes and he was already counting the seconds, wondering how soon it would be before she would return. As though Voldemort had ever released his Death Eaters that quickly at a meeting - a five minute meeting would generate more gossip and panic than almost anything else he could imagine.

Snape's pacing slowed as his shivering increased; the castle windows in the far distance glowed orange and warm with candlelight and fires in this late evening. The last of dusk stole through the trees around him, blanketing slowly as the final vestiges of sunlight faded over the far horizon, stealing through the clouds of still-falling sleet. As Snape watched, another window in the school flared into light and, just as suddenly, he cursed his own stupidity. Distraction could have killed him - or at least given him hypothermia; neither option would have made him much use to Hermione. Self-castigation accompanied a short, terse, word as he dragged his wand from his sleeve and pointed it at a dead branch lying on the ground a little distance away.

 _"Incendio!"_

Flames leapt and licked at the wood; a flash of copper-green shot skywards then settled to the characteristic incandescence of fierce yellow and orange. Snape allowed the observation to distract him from worry and fear; interesting that his own signature showed through even Hermione's body - the initial copper-green flame of fire was something he had never quite understood; his own twist on Incendio, something he had never entirely overcome. It had startled Flitwick in his Charms lessons - a rather younger Flitwick, but little different otherwise. It had enlivened the class, the first time he had tried the spell, and Flitwick had been - still was, truth be told - intrigued. No reason, no correction, had been forthcoming and - as the spell otherwise functioned perfectly well - it was put down to Snapish idiosyncracy.

It was just as well that he had never had to light a fire in front of others as Hermione; it would have been something of a giveaway. Or ... had he ... Snape tried to remember. Nothing came to mind, and he was shivering again even as he held his hands to the fire and felt the heat flare against his legs. His sweater wasn't enough, wouldn't be enough, to keep him warm until Hermione returned. At least, not in its current state.

Transfiguration lessons had their uses, after all, he found. Moments and a spell later, his sweater was a thick coat, falling to his ankles and buttoning to his throat; modelled after a military coat he vaguely remembered seeing somewhere, it was wool and heavy. He shivered still, even after the coat had had time to warm him. It was getting harder to blame the reaction on the weather.

Eight minutes.

Eight minutes. She would have met Voldemort now, he thought. Irresistibly, his memories recreated the scene; the very last thing he wanted to think about, and the only thing that he could think about. Had she remembered how to approach Voldemort? Or was she now writhing on the floor, paying the penalty for lack of respect? Had he told her everything? Would she remember to ...?

Snape flinched in pain; his palms were bleeding, small crescent-shaped cuts reddening and leaching where he had clenched his fists as the whirl of panicked thought swept through him. There was nothing he could do for Hermione now, and it was pointless to try and calculate whether he had done enough during the evenings they had spent together. She had clearly not anticipated this turn of events - or had successfully blocked the possibility from her mind. Experience had not permitted him to do the same, and he had used their evenings of potions experiments to try to infuse some protection into her subconscious; ideas and thoughts, possibilities. Nothing specific and, until tonight, nothing definitively intended to protect from Voldemort; a patchwork of attitude and stance that could might provide some help.

Could he have done more? Snape couldn't escape the thought so escaped instead into memories of their evenings of work; the shivering eased as he sank into the warmth that he had unexpectedly found in the company of Hermione. He had been - still was - continually surprised by her; the lack of artifice, the subtle amusement at the follies of her peers and her elders, the biting intelligence and curiosity. The intelligence he had anticipated; he would have had to have been dead not to have anticipated it, but she still surprised him - it was more than an eidetic memory, more than the word-perfect bookworm that he had thought her to be.

Eleven minutes. She would be in the circle now; had she made her report? Would she had embellished ... no, he thought not. Hermione wasn't prone to exaggeration.

Tired, cold, still shivering, Snape wanted nothing more than to curl up and block all thought from his mind. His mind was ... wherever Hermione was. He was scared, he admitted to himself at last. Absolutely bloody petrified. For once, the fear wasn't for himself; no matter that her discovery would ensure his death, sooner or later, what mattered more was that her discovery would mean her death. Sooner, rather than later. It was an intolerable thought; he would rather lose himself than lose her.

Frozen in front of a fire, shivering in half a hundredweight of black wool at the edge of a forest in near-full Scottish night, Snape admitted at last to himself that he would not know what to do without Hermione. Somewhere in the conversations and wry asides that had constituted their relationship for the past few months had grown a deep emotion; more than mere understanding although, beyond doubt, they knew each other now better than anyone else would ever know them.

Twenty minutes. Where was she? Where would he even begin to look if she didn't return - she had to return. Nothing else was possible. His shivering increased until he was almost shuddering; breathing the sharp air, he forced himself to relax. The kiss they had greeted each other with in the New Year crept into his mind; it had never been very far from his thoughts in the past couple of weeks. It had been chaste enough, a touch of cheeks and lips and nothing more. He called himself several kinds of fool for believing it could have been anything else and yet ... and yet ... the intent had been there, for his part at least.

Thirty minutes. A long meeting. The fire spluttered and crackled in front of him as the spell overcame a particularly damp patch in the wood that it consumed. What was Voldemort doing?

The school was entirely lost in the night now as Snape looked up; only the windows glowed in the darkness, pinpricks of light randomly scattered before him. The fire provided the only light, the moon hidden behind the clouds. It had stopped raining at some point, but the air was still damp and cold.

Snape forced his mind to blankness, reciting potions ingredients to himself and trying not to think of Hermione; all his mind could conjure now was the sight of her lying in the midst of a circle of Death Eaters, wracked in pain and worse. He had been there too many times to dismiss the possibility and yet the thought now hurt more than any pain he could recall from the curses themselves; he saw her as Hermione in his mind, a young woman, and not as the man he knew she would still present to the circle - the length of hair falling into his face, curling as the sleet had soaked it, confirmed that.

Wolfsbane. Beazor. Sulphur. Aconite. Mercury. Basilisk scales. Gillyweed. Mistletoe. Lacewings. Pyrite.

Forty minutes. _Where was she?_ The thought now echoed through his mind like a scream and Snape gave up any pretence of calm. He paced around the fire, shivering and hugging himself in the coat in mingled fear and frozen frustration, until a sharp crack had him whirling around, wand out.

A tall figure, black cloak swirling around a silver mask, faced him silently and Snape braced himself for the cursing that would follow. It had all taken too long; she had been found out and now he would have to deal with the inevitable consequences. They had almost got away with it. Had she ... he forced his mind to the present; time enough to mourn her later, if he survived. If he survived; he didn't want to survive.

Nonetheless, something held him back from taking the initiative in the fight he anticipated; perhaps the death-wish, possibly a sense of something else. Whatever it was, the figure crumpled in front of him without even a token attempt to curse, to duel. Snape hurried over, wand still ready in case of ambush, and lifted the mask to face his attacker.

He found himself looking at his own face; Hermione had survived. The rush of relief sent a shudder through him that chased out the shivering that had been his companion since she had left.

Fervent relief was followed by a hard dose of practicality; Hermione was unconscious and, in the heavy robes, it was almost impossible to tell how badly she'd been hurt. There were no obvious injuries but, other than the face, it would have been hard to spot injuries in the black of night. Getting her to the castle was the first order of priority, then. If nothing else, he would need light to treat her.

 _Mobilicorpus_ worked as well as it ever had; the path was difficult to follow, even with a lighted wand to act as a torch, and Snape stumbled several times as he tripped over roots and stones. Things might have gone more smoothly if he could have brought himself to take his gaze from Hermione's face, waiting and watching as he walked, hoping and fearing she would wake. He wanted to see her eyes, hear her speak, understand that she had survived - but if she should prove badly injured, he would rather she stayed unconscious until they were somewhere that he could treat her.

The Infirmary was out, just for now; it would be too difficult to explain to Madam Pomfrey just what it was that he had been doing out on the grounds, even if she would understand all too well what Snape had been doing there. It was also too risky - he had no idea what state Hermione would wake up in and, if she hadn't been discovered, he wasn't prepared to have her announce the situation to all and sundry in delirium. Far better to make the first assessment himself; a fierce feeling of protectiveness had nothing to do with it.

Passwords and more passwords, corridors and doors, brought them through the depths of the castle from the cliff entrance; there was no-one around to see them in that place and that late in the evening. His rooms were in a backwater of the castle, little disturbed by any but the occasional house-elf, and an agonising fifteen minutes later Snape opened the doors into the welcoming warmth. The fireplace belched out heat that stung in the contrast to the cold night and chilly corridors.

Hermione still hadn't come to when Snape settled her on the bed. He hesitated for a moment, then started to remove her clothes. He rationalised it carefully - it was, after all, his body and they were his clothes that he was removing. Nothing there that he hadn't seen before.

He had undressed her to underwear before he realised. There were no injuries - none visible, anyway. A rapid scan with the wand indicated that she hadn't been hexed or cursed; she was simply unconscious. What had she seen this evening to produce this reaction? Snape sat by the edge of the bed, full of questions that there was no point in asking.

Half an hour passed in near-silence, a background of the rustling fire and their breathing doing little to dispel the close night weaving around them, before Hermione finally woke. Snape looked round, smothering a start of surprise when her breathing changed abruptly with a gasp.

"Oh god!"

Hermione flinched and sat up, clearly bewildered and distressed; with consciousness she started to shiver, taking over where Snape had stopped when she had reappeared. He stood slowly, drawing her attention to him.

"It's alright; you're safe. You're safe." He kept his voice low and quiet, reassuring and soothing. Hermione looked slightly less distressed but still rather confused - perhaps not surprisingly; he wasn't renowned for comfort, after all.

"I ... oh. These are my rooms ... yes, of course they are. Sorry, I shouldn't state the obvious." Hermione was losing the confusion rapidly, coming fully into the moment. "Oh god ..." she shuddered again. Snape put a hand to her shoulder, absently noting the warmth there.

"Memories?" he asked carefully. She nodded and ducked her head; he thought he heard a sob, but she seemed more composed when she looked back up at him. "Do you want to tell me what happened, or shall we go to Dumbledore? I usually report to him after these ... events."

"I'd rather tell you, I think," she replied. He rubbed his thumb over her collarbone, hoping to reassure, and nodded.

"Something to drink, first?"

Hermione nodded again, then seemed to realise just where she was. "And some clothes, I think," she said wryly.

Snape felt himself blush, cursing inwardly. "You - I thought you might have been hurt, and I needed to check. It seemed expedient." Hermione seemed to accept the explanation and he turned away to deal with tea. He heard her leave the bed and open the wardrobe, then the sound of fabric against skin. The blush was still there; he wasn't entirely sure what prompted it ... yes, actually, he knew very well what prompted it. This was ridiculous; he had accepted reality in the frozen evening outside, waiting for her. That reality hadn't changed and no sophistry or pretence would deny it. He wasn't about to confess to Hermione just how important she was to him but it seemed ludicrous now to deny it to himself.

He had thought that what he felt earlier was relief; it was nothing compared to this. A solid rush of pleasure, relief, light-headedness; all at the simple acceptance of an equally simple fact. Potentially leading to a fiendishly complicated situation - which was not something he wanted to think about now. The future could - and would - take care of itself.

Snape settled into one of the sofas in the main room; Hermione followed a moment later. She had picked his Muggle clothes to wear, probably in an attempt to distance herself completely from the robes and actions of the evening - she wasn't to know that he did exactly the same thing when he could. He was startled when she sat next to him, reaching for the mug of coffee that he had placed on the table, closer to one of the chairs.

He watched her curl her hands around the mug, long fingers encircling the stoneware, and bring the mug up to her chest as though inhaling the scent. She looked bone-tired, white and pallid, skin stark against the black hair that fell forwards and almost obscured her face. She sipped the coffee at last, then placed it back on the table and leaned back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.

"I saw a man die this evening; just stood and watched and did absolutely nothing. I thought it would be me - he told us that he knew there was a traitor in the circle." She had no need to name Voldemort; no-one else could be 'he'. "When he told the traitor to step forward, I was already moving when he called Rudd's name. I almost gave you away. I'm sorry." Her voice had become tight and blank, particularly when she confessed to the slip. "I was so scared." The last words were a whisper which Snape barely caught.

Before he could think of something to say, Snape found himself beside Hermione on the sofa, arms around her and a desperate desire to comfort, to ease the blank pain of the whisper. Not for the first time, he regretted that he was now so much smaller than she was - all he could do was embrace and hope she returned it; then he felt her arms settle around him, and her face tucked against his head.

"Thank you." Another whisper, some minutes later, with more colour and less pain. Snape eased his head up to look at her; deep black eyes looked back at him, her lower lip caught uncertainly in her teeth - a habit that looked rather less incongruous in her own body.

"I couldn't stop it. I couldn't do anything."

Snape shook his head at her words. "You can't. There's nothing that you could have done that would not have guaranteed more people to die."

"How do you stand it?"

"What makes you think I _can_ stand it? I concentrate on what I can achieve, then I take the anger and fear out on passing students. And glasses. And bottles. And anything else that gets in my way. _Reparo_ is probably one of my most-used spells." The note of irony in his voice brought out a near-smile; a hopeful sign, but this would take a long time for her to deal with.

He didn't want to drag her back into memories but he had questions that needed to be asked. "You mentioned Rudd, was that right?" She nodded. "Damn. That's another one gone, then."

"So he was a spy?"

"He thought he was; he wasn't close enough to Voldemort to be particularly useful, but there was no point in discouraging him when he decided he wanted to turn sides. I'll tell Dumbledore, he'll notify the necessary people."

"Okay." The pain was back, but the blankness seemed to have gone. Hermione suddenly seemed to realise exactly where they were - wrapped around each other, Snape tucked into her side. "Um ..."

"Do you want me to move?" Snape wondered where the words had come from; he had intended to move as soon as she seemed uncomfortable, not give her a choice and invite rejection.

"No." That, at least, was decisive; as was the tightening of her arms around him. "I ... need you, just for a moment longer."

Dumbledore could wait. There was nothing that could be done for Rudd now. The night moved into morning as they sat in front of the fire in silence, healing and comforting.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Fire and the Rose Part 33**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 33 - Thunder Entered Her And Made No Sound_

Despite Snape's offer, in the end Hermione decided to talk to Dumbledore herself; _needed_ to do it herself.

"I can't just go back to my life pretending that this didn't happen," she said with more confidence than she felt, standing away from Snape, away from his warmth and his support, putting all her effort into not throwing herself back into his arms, sobbing like a child, letting him pick over the wreckage of the previous evening for her. "I have to deal with it ... with the consequences."

Never mind that at this moment in time she couldn't imagine _dealing_ with it; had no idea where to start. Snape didn't question her decision; he just followed her quietly to the Headmaster's study as night greyed into day.

She didn't ask him not to.

Dumbledore listened in grave silence to the news about Rudd and the other snippets of information that she had been able to glean. Her account was punctuated with nods and murmurs of encouragement and automatic sips of tea, and, as she described the moment when Rudd had stepped forward, she felt Fawkes land on the back of her chair, dropping his head to rub the side of his face softly against hers. The Headmaster was another man of counterpoints, she thought distantly. He was your favourite eccentric uncle, who dispensed sweets and surreal statements until you forgot that he was the wizard that even Voldemort hesitated to directly challenge. Currently, there was no trace of the slightly dotty old man with the engaging twinkle; in its place was the powerful presence, eyes alight with keen analytical intelligence, skilfully drawing out every last nuance of her encounter with the Dark Lord. The assumption of equality, the acceptance of her experience and her right to participate, steadied her more than any amount of quasi-paternal comfort would have. She felt the feeling of futility slowly recede, felt herself recapture the belief that it _was_ worth continuing the fight, that the Light did have some aces of its own, hidden away in the deep recesses of its robes.

By the end of the interview she was still shocked and tired, but normality had begun to seep back into the fringes of her world.

As she finished the last of her tea, she became aware that the room had fallen silent. Dumbledore was watching her, concern in his eyes.

"You have been through something of an ordeal tonight, Hermione," he said gently. "If you need to rest today, arrangements can be made."

He was giving her the option of running away, if only for a short time. Instinctively, she looked over to the other person in the room; a still presence with an inner focus that did not belong to her.

 _Snape._

Snape who had held her. Snape who had offered to take this part of the task upon himself to spare her as far as he could. She swallowed.

"I don't recall," she said carefully, "that Professor Snape has ever taken a day off since I've been at the school. It would look odd for him to start now. I think I can get through the day." She paused, and smiled faintly. "Although I may be a little short tempered."

She thought that she caught the briefest flicker of an answering smile and only then registered that she had directed the answer towards Snape and not Dumbledore.

"In that case," acknowledged the Headmaster, as if she'd spoken to him directly, "you'd both better hurry. It's nearly time for morning classes to begin."

Hermione jumped a little at the words entering her head from an unexpected direction. She nodded and stood up. Snape stood up with her. Dumbledore's quiet, "Well done ... to both of you" echoed softly as they left the room and headed down the corridor. As they walked, Hermione thought of their last trip along this corridor, just after the accident; it had passed in mute hostility, all but physically jostling one another. Now, they were equally silent, but his presence was no longer a threat; it was a comfort, a strength that she didn't want to do without - _couldn't_ do without. They eventually reached the gargoyle that would lead them into the main parts of the school; the point at which she had to take up the role of Snape once again.

She paused. She needed to say something else before the moment passed.

"I'm glad I talked to the Headmaster myself." She looked at her hands. "It helped. It ... steadied ... me, somehow. Made me feel that it was less ... hopeless."

"I usually find that it does." His voice was a quiet recognition of the layers of feeling implicit in the sentence.

"Is he always like that? Afterwards, I mean."

"Yes."

"I see." She stopped speaking but did not make any move to pass the gargoyle. There was something else. She pulled herself away from her study of her hands to look into his eyes; the brown that was hers, shadowed by the understanding and knowledge that was not.

"Thank you," she said simply. She couldn't say more, couldn't begin to elaborate on the statement.

His gaze did not falter and his voice was quiet and sincere.

"You're welcome."

January drizzled into February.

Hermione carried on walking through the steps of Snape's life and the Dark Mark on her arm remained quiescent. The nightmares from the meeting faded, but that night had changed her relationship with Snape irrevocably. Not in class; she was as dismissive of him there as she had ever been - if not more so, as if the fact that he knew - truly _knew_ \- freed her somehow, enabled her to hit out in the security that she wouldn't do harm. No, the difference was not in class.

The difference was in the evenings. Their time together had now taken on another quality, a deeper layer of unspoken communication. An awareness of the moods of the other, a bone-deep understanding of what underlay the flares of temper and flashes of frustration. She had never realised how much of herself she had held back until she no longer had to. It was exhilarating and intoxicating and calming and soothing and she wondered if he felt it as well.

Then there were the touches. A hand placed between her shoulder blades to tell her that there was a mug of coffee on the desk beside her; fingers laid on his arm to get his attention part way through an experiment; soft gestures of greeting and parting. Nothing overt - certainly, nothing public - just a subliminal checking and re-checking of the presence of the other. Something that barely sketched the edges of conscious thought.

And the constant question muttering through her mind; what he would do if, just once, she trapped his hand, raised it to her mouth, brushed it with her lips, tasted the skin ...?

"... Valentine's Day ..."

The words penetrated Hermione's thoughts and brought her back to the Great Hall with unpleasant suddenness. Given the time of the year, and interpreting the sidelong glances that some of the students were casting at the top table, it appeared that she had just missed the announcement of the annual Valentine's Day Ball. She had known about it - she could hardly have missed it seeing as she had been present at the staff meeting that had given Flitwick, Hooch and Hagrid charge of the organisation. However, she had been preoccupied, in more ways than one, with the events of the Death Eater meeting and had tuned out the pointed references to the "Top Secret" planning meetings in staff room conversations. Given the key organisational personnel, she thought that the school would be lucky to escape with nothing worse than a plague of singing dwarves.

The evening showed Snape to be no more enthusiastic about the Ball than she was.

"I'm sure that it will come as no surprise to you that Miss Brown and Miss Patil's first thought was to arrange another 'fun' evening when they could inflict further torture on me in the name of 'self-improvement'. Their second thought was to tell me that I absolutely 'had' to transfigure some of those 'dreamy' clothes for them. I barely managed to escape back to my rooms where I was greeted by a pile of semi-literate requests for bath oils and perfumes."

The expression on his face made her laugh outright.

"Sounds to me like you're a victim of your own success," she said unsympathetically. "All I have to do is survive a day when the students will even more inattentive than usual _and_ dodge flying bludgers, inscribed with bad love poetry, delivered by hinkypunks charmed to look like cherubs. What could be easier?"

She was rewarded by a chuckle from his direction.

 _What could be easier?_

The night of the Ball found Hermione battling a growing sense of unreality. It had been easy enough to ignore the whole thing from the sanctuary of the dungeons. Nobody would have expected Professor Snape to be entering into the spirit of the occasion; in fact, if she had shown the slightest hint of doing so, there would surely have been a flurry of anonymous referrals to the secure psychiatric wing of St Mungo's. She had blocked out the rising buzz of excitement and speculation, carefully avoided seeing the owled memos about decorations and glared viciously at Hooch when she made a comment about allowing the students "a little indulgence" for the occasion.

Hooch had only pushed her luck once on that score.

In the end, it hadn't been enchanted hinkypunks but enchanted leprechauns. They zipped around the castle on tiny charmed brooms, carrying cards, chanting verse of dubious quality and showering people with gold, and slightly wilted roses. The gold disappeared after a few hours; the roses didn't and, by the middle of the afternoon, had begun to constitute a Health and Safety hazard - a fact that Argus Filch pointed out loudly to anybody who could be persuaded to stand still long enough to listen.

Hermione dealt with the first - and only - leprechaun to enter the Potions Classroom by the simple expedient of drawing her wand and casting _Petrificus Totalis_ without even breaking in her lecture to the class. As the immobile leprechaun clattered to the ground, Hermione strode to the door and seized the small broom, which was hanging riderless and looking as confused as was possible for an inanimate object. She addressed the class as she returned to her teaching position.

"This class will not be interrupted by this sort of nonsense. Carstairs," - this to a second year Ravenclaw - "move that creature to the side of the room. The rest of you, get on with your potions."

After that the dungeons were an oasis of non-Valentine's Day calm.

However, all oases must be left eventually, and the Headmaster had made it perfectly plain that he expected _all_ his staff to be present in the Great Hall for dinner and the subsequent festivities. So, with a reluctance that surprised even her, Hermione made her way to dinner, passing Filch who was still sweeping up flowers with a big broom and muttering under his breath.

She sat at the High Table and ate mechanically, feeling disconnected from the ribbons and balloons and flowers and general _pinkness_ of the occasion. She cast a glance over the Gryffindor table. Snape was sitting between Ron and Neville; there was chatter and laughter and she couldn't guess at his emotions from his body language. It all seemed a long way away to her. Once dinner was completed, there was a general scraping of benches and tables and the room obligingly rearranged itself to accommodate the dancers. Students milled around and Hermione lost sight of Snape in the movement. Restless, she moved away from the dais and began to prowl, as she had watched him do so many times at so many similar events.

There was almost a muted feel to the evening. She tried to glare at all comers without fear or favour, but her attention was constantly drawn by the glimpses of Snape; Snape with Harry, with Ron, with Dean, with Lavender - at least he seemed to have been able to avoid taking a _date_. The Gryffindors appeared to be existing as a pack whose members changed from time to time.

The music began and people started to pair up; still Snape did not appear to be _with_ anyone, although Ron seemed to be hovering on the edge of his personal space. She wondered at that for a moment and then dismissed it. He was more than likely trying to talk her into using her privileges as Head Girl to get close enough to the top table to spike the punch. The dancers passed by her and the Gryffindor group disappeared. She stalked on.

The next time the crowd parted she saw Alice Lacock, staring in a way that bordered on vacant, at one of the Gryffindor boys. He was holding her hand as if it might explode at any moment, and was casting unhappy looks in the direction of a gaggle of Slytherin boys, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of participating in a reenactment of some of the less romantic moments of _Romeo and Juliet_. Hermione decided to make a preemptive intervention, her glare heavy with the promise of detentions, disrupting the eye contact between the prospective antagonists and reminding the Slytherins of the virtues of privacy and subtlety and above all, not giving anyone an excuse to take house points from them.

The mission appeared to have been a success; the next time that Hermione saw them they were all pointedly ignoring each other. She tried to feel pleasure in her success at being Snape, but it wasn't there. She wanted to shout at them all; _Three weeks ago a man died. Another man could be dying tonight, right at this moment, and all you care about is dates and house points. What are you thinking of? Don't you understand_ _ **anything?**_ On the dance floor, a gap showed her that Snape was dancing with Neville, very cautiously, and at as great a personal distance as possible. She couldn't even summon amusement for his predicament or sympathy for his feet. Inarticulate frustration clogged her throat and she suddenly had to get out of the noise and the heat and the oblivious people.

Out in the gardens, she sucked in a deep breath of the icy air, uncaring of the cold. The sky was bright and clear; as clear as it had been on the night when she had traced out the constellations and decided that she was still in England. She tried to crush the thought; this was ridiculous, she had moved on, she was coping. She took another breath, and let it out slowly, watching it condense and swirl, lit by the dim overspill of light from the castle.

"Are you all right?"

A quiet enquiry. Snape.

She hadn't realised that he had noticed her going. She tried to order her thoughts.

"It doesn't seem real," she said at last, not looking at him. He didn't question or comment, just waited for her to go on. "It doesn't seem right. After what happened." She wrinkled her brow, struggling to put words to the feeling inside her. "It's as if nothing has changed, and it _should_ have."

"Nothing _has_ changed for them," he said softly. "Something momentous happens and the sun still rises and the world still turns and Mr Longbottom still fails to complete the simplest task successfully." He paused. "Life goes on, Hermione. With you or without you."

She shivered.

"That's a cold thought."

"The world is a cold place. Those inside will discover that soon enough. Albus thinks that they should be protected as long as possible. I ..."

"You disagree," she finished for him.

"Sheltering people makes them vulnerable. That is something that I do not think we can afford."

 _No. Voldemort's circle was certainly no place for weakness._

She silently conceded that he had a point.

"Is that why you're ... like you are?"

"Yes. Well - that, and my innate unpleasantness."

The last remark was a tease meant to pull her out of the mood, she knew that. But after everything that had passed between them, it somehow felt inappropriate.

"You're not innately unpleasant," she said, the words more direct that she had intended, coming up from the part of her that was bedrock Hermione. Her breath hung in front of her, twisting, visible proof that she had really spoken. The charged silence between them made her acutely aware of the background noise of the Ball, filtering out into the night; the music, stripped of its treble, sounding intermittent bass notes; laughter and chatter, individual words and voices blending into a rough swell that rose and fell like the sea. She thought she heard him say her name, but it could have been the rasp of his breath in the air. She suddenly found that she didn't want to know where this was leading, or at least didn't want to find out standing in the cold of February, in a snatched moment that would have to be later excused and accounted for.

It needed time and care and attention, like the brewing of a rare and complex potion.

"You should get back to the Ball," she said, hoping that she didn't sound too unsteady. "The boys will miss you if you aren't there."

She felt him step back.

"Yes, you're right, of course. Good evening, Hermione."

She heard his voice close slightly, moving away more than physically. She didn't want that to happen. Not at all.

"Severus," she said, hoping that the use of his given name would stop him. It did. "I noticed that you hadn't checked on the experiments today. I wondered ... if you were planning to do so after the Ball."

He was silent so long that she thought that he had gone back into the castle without replying. Then he spoke.

"If that would not be inconvenient to you." His voice was careful, as if he was testing unsafe ground.

"Not at all," she said, hearing the same care in her own voice. "I would be happy to have your company."

"Then I will see you after the Ball."

She didn't say anything as he left her standing there. Casual banter would have been out of place. She had the feeling that the world had just moved again, without anyone other than her noticing it. Hermione took a deliberate breath, tensed her diaphragm and concentrated on exhaling in an even, controlled stream. She wondered exactly what it was that she had just set in train.

And exactly where the morning would find her.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Fire and the Rose Part 34**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 34 - A Breach In The Walls, A Broken Gate_

The Yule Ball - and the Halloween Dance - seemed positively inviting by comparison to this, thought Snape. The Valentine's Ball. A misbegotten excuse for an explosion of pink and red and cherubs enough to make anyone ill, let alone someone whose artistic tastes ran more to Pollock than Rubens.

His sideline business in skin and hair-care potions had been kept busy in the few days running up to the Ball - it seemed that every girl in the school had now heard of the concoctions and wanted them. Snape amused himself in the certain knowledge that he was making rather more money out of this venture than the Weasley twins had ever done from their various extra-curricular activities.

More surprising was his sudden popularity as a dress designer. The clothes he had transfigured for the Yule Ball had not gone un-noticed and were proving to be more popular than he could have imagined - countless girls had come asking where he got the clothes from and whether he could get more. His annoyance at the constant interruptions required some masking - not entirely, for Hermione would not have stood for this either, but it did need moderating. He distracted - and amused - himself by imagining just what the girls would do if they knew _who_ it was that they were asking for clothes.

However, amusement, constantly repeated, wears thin after time. Occasionally Snape would recall just who and what he really was and be mildly disgusted; he told himself it was disgust at being forced to act the part - at having to be polite and listen to tedious deliberations as to styles and fabrics. Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he rather thought it was disgust at enjoying being sought out by his peers - sought out for help, and not for teasing or abuse. He should have grown out of the need for validation or, at the very least, he would have thought it had been beaten out of him by time and circumstances. Clearly, though, that need for the approval of others had only been cowed rather than annihilated as he had thought - hoped.

He consoled himself with the thought that, at least, he was not being sought out for his company - other than by those who usually sought Hermione's company. Even there, it was obvious to him - and, he thought, to Hermione - that they sought her company more for themselves than for something intrinsically 'Hermione'. Neither Potter nor Weasley - it was hard to give them the respect of their first names when he recalled how little they understood Hermione - had any clue what drove her, and only gave cursory respect themselves to her interests. After six years or so, they really should have had more idea, he thought. He acknowledged their affection for her - and didn't realise how much that acknowledgement revealed the change in him over the past few months - but wished they would simply grow up.

He had tried to say as much to Hermione one evening; one of those evenings that found the two of them in the laboratory, wrapped in each other's understanding. They had been drinking coffee, sitting in armchairs that Hermione had conjured from a couple of laboratory stools, and enjoying the warmth of the fire in the grate whilst they waited for the latest bath of experiments and potions to cool.

The conversation had been abstract and sporadic, occasional thoughts voiced in the silence. Abruptly, from nowhere, he had turned to Hermione.

"Why do you put up with Potter and Weasley? I know you are friends, but does it not irritate you that they ride roughshod over you most of the time?"

"Is it irritating you?" came the quiet reply from the depths of the other armchair.

"Well ..." Snape paused. "I don't think it irritates me that they ride roughshod over _me_ , but that they do it to you."

Hermione looked up from her coffee and smiled at him, and Snape realised just what he had given away with that one sentence. He wondered whether he should try to ... no. It certainly wasn't going to come as a surprise to Hermione, no matter that they had never discussed the issue.

"Don't worry about it, Severus," she said at last. "They're boys. It would just confuse them if I tried to change them, and I can deal with it when their attitude gets in the way. They usually blame it on PMS," she added prosaically, "but it does the trick. They're good company otherwise, and generally stop me getting too serious."

"Has that been a problem for you these months - getting too serious?" asked Snape.

Hermione paused for thought, giving the question due consideration.

"I've had more to be serious about, I think. It's been appropriate to be serious. You've given me other ways to deal with it, lately."

An admission for an admission, neither specific but both understood. They lapsed back into silence, broken only by the hiss and spit of the logs being consumed by the fire, until Hermione had finished her coffee, put down the mug, and stood to hold her hand out to Snape. "Come on, let's go and see where we've got to with this latest batch." He took her hand and allowed her to tug him up from the chair. They had relinquished the touch when he was on his feet, but he felt it for a while longer in memory and desire.

Valentine's Day dawned chill and cold with hoar frost an inch thick, icing the world outside the castle so that it glistened almost painfully under the cold winter sun.

Snape woke with a vague sense of dread; some things never changed, regardless of the year and the body, and Valentine's Day was eternal. Eternally dreadful.

All deliveries and clothes transfigurations had been dealt with; he had avoided Lavender and Parvati _very_ successfully after their 'suggestion' that they repeat the 'girlie evening', as they called it. He had - very rapidly - found some Depilatory Charms in the library and made frequent use of them (since they rarely lasted more than a day) to ensure that they had absolutely no excuse to corner him again, then ensconced himself in the dungeons with Hermione and pleaded pressure of work until they gave up. Hermione had been highly amused at his exaggerated indignation and disgust. Well, perhaps not all that exaggerated.

Snape lay in bed and watched the weak sunlight struggled through the windows, his mind still fuzzy with warm sleep, and tried not to wonder whether he and Hermione would be able to dance together at the Ball. He distracted himself with a run-through the timetable for the day, recalling classes and mentally checking whether he had reviewed the homework that Hermione had done to ensure that he knew all that she knew.

If this experience had done nothing else, it was certainly ensuring that he was thoroughly up to date on a multiplicity of subjects that he had given little thought to since leaving school. Transfiguration, for a start. Revisiting Arithmancy was interesting - he had kept up with it to a reasonable degree even after school, since it was a useful tool in predicting the potential outcomes of more volatile experiments. Similarly, Runes continued to be of help in his work on some of the more historical aspects of Potions-making.

History of Magic, though, was never going to be of any interest - and certainly hadn't advanced since his own lessons. Defence Against the Dark Arts was an exercise in frustration and tongue-biting as the latest in the series of hapless morons that had been scraped up from who-knew-where tried to instruct him.

It was, finally, impossible to put off the moment any longer and Snape slid out of bed to head for the shower. Pleasant as it would be to sleep the day away - and the evening - it wasn't a practical solution. Someone would undoubtedly come looking for him, quite apart from his own sense of obligation.

The day was as appalling as he had thought. Leprechauns, of all things. On broomsticks, delivering Valentine's cards. He itched to hex them into oblivion and had to smother a grin when he over-heard a couple of second-years discussing how 'Snape' had dispatched the first to try and enter the Potions classroom.

His worst fears were realised shortly after that smothered grin; he, Harry and Ron were walking to lunch when a shwish of sound through the air announced another leprechaun and Snape instinctively ducked. When he straightened up, the creature was hovering in front of him, grinning like a lunatic, and abruptly tossed him a rose in a shower of coins. Snape caught the rose instinctively, hearing the coins chink musically as they fell on the stone floor around him.

The leprechaun turned and sped off on the ludicrous little broomstick as Snape looked at the somewhat sorry-looking flower in his hand. Harry and Ron had one each as well, but were looking at him with no little interest.

"So who's that from?" asked Ron, glee in his voice. "Don't tell me you've got a boyfriend?!"

"Ron!" hissed Harry. Ron looked at him, clearly wondering what he'd said wrong. Snape almost thanked Harry for at least noticing that Ron's tone of incredulity was less than flattering, but Ron appeared to suddenly realise and blustered slightly.

"Well, I mean ... you couldn't have time ... you're always in the library ... or the Potions classroom ... and with being Head Girl."

"Ron," sighed Snape, dragging on Hermione's character in his voice, "shut up, before you put your foot even further into your mouth." He smiled, well aware that it wouldn't reach his eyes, but hoping that Ron would take the comment as an affectionate tease. Thankfully, Ron was obviously too pleased to have an excuse to shut up to notice that 'Hermione' wasn't necessarily overjoyed.

Harry had turned his attention to his rose, and laughed. Snape looked at him quizzically and Harry showed him the note attached to his rose.

"To my fresh pickled toad" read the lettering on the note.

Snape must have looked as uncomprehending as he felt, because Harry laughed again and said "it's from Ginny - you remember, the Valentine she sent me in the second year. 'His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad'. Fred and George didn't let go of that one for weeks!"

Snape laughed, since it was clearly expected of him, and made a mental note to ask Hermione what on earth Harry was talking about. That the Valentine was from Ginny Weasley was no particular surprise - Snape assumed Harry had sent her something similar. Ron's was undoubtedly from whoever the girlfriend of the week was: some Hufflepuff, but Snape couldn't remember her name. Ron didn't seem terribly pleased to have received it - presumably she was on her way out of favour.

All this had managed to distract him for his own rose for a few moments but he couldn't put off looking at the note for any longer; the boys were obviously waiting to see who had sent him the rose as well. He turned over the tag and read it.

"Happy Valentine's Day, with love from Neville Longbottom."

A moment of panic seized Snape. Please, please, let this be a joke - he had survived Alice Lacock's attentions to 'Snape' by proxy, but he wasn't sure he could deal with Neville Longbottom's attentions to 'Hermione' directly.

He was saved from terror by Harry's comment. "Oh, of course. I'd forgotten Neville was planning to do that."

"Do what?" asked Snape, nervously.

"He's sent a Valentine to every girl in our year in Gryffindor," explained Harry. "He thought it was a shame that not everyone got one last year, so he decided to make sure no-one missed out this year."

"So you don't need to worry that Neville has a crush on you," teased Ron. Snape smiled weakly at him.

Relief. Palpable relief. It was a very _Longbottom_ thing to do - a very _Gryffindor_ and thankfully impersonal. He was saved from having to duck and avoid the boy for the rest of the day - week - year ... no, Snape brought himself up short. Not year. The mandrakes would be ready soon, and this would all be over. He waited for the rush of relief at _that_ thought and found it odd that, although there was relief, it was mixed with melancholy.

Too many other things would be over at the same time.

The rest of the day passed as usual; the leprechauns disappeared by lunchtime, to the relief of many, and the afternoon wore on in an increasing excess of high spirits.

Dinner was the usual Hogwarts' blow-out feast - Snape had never quite understood how anyone was supposed to move, let alone dance, after the quantities of food that were provided. He picked his way through vegetables, half-listening to the excited chatter around him, and trying not to look at the decoration that overwhelmed even this space. As usual, little effort seemed to have been spared and the Hall was pink. Very pink. Pink candles, pink ribbons, pink balloons, red hearts floating in mid-air and a general tendency on the part of the girls throughout the Hall to dress in shades that ranged all the way from pink to red. Only the ceiling remained untouched, reflecting the clear black night with a myriad of stars.

His own concession to the occasion had been to alter the shade of the velvet jacket from his Yule Ball outfit from black to a very dark red; in low light it was hard to tell that he'd changed the colour at all. Lavender and Parvati had tried to be outraged that he hadn't come up with something new but, in the end, had to admit that it worked and did, after all, suit 'Hermione' very well.

From time to time during the meal he glanced up to the High Table; Hermione was sitting there as uncomfortably as he would have done, somewhere between a sneer and disinterest. He caught her glancing his way from time to time but made sure to look away before she saw him watching her; he wasn't sure why he didn't want to catch her eye just now, he simply had a feeling that it was best not to distract either of them.

Finally the meal was over and the Hall cleared for dancing; the music began and Snape instinctively drew back and avoided any potential dance partner, hiding in plain sight in the melee of Gryffindors. From time to time he saw Hermione prowling around the room, patrolling effortlessly with nothing more than presence.

Snape's luck eventually ran out, though, and Neville approached him with a request to dance that was impossible to politely refuse. They moved awkwardly through the steps for a while, Snape keeping clear space between them - particularly after a near miss from Neville's wayward feet. Conversation was almost as awkward as the steps, with Snape forcing himself to thank Neville for the rose.

Dancing with Neville Longbottom and thanking him for a rose. Someone, somewhere, was laughing themselves stupid at this, thought Snape.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Hermione heading rapidly for the gardens. She looked ... odd. As though she desperately needed to escape, rather than simply going in search of errant students.

Snape disentangled himself from Neville as quickly as possible, without raising alarm, and headed out to the gardens as well; he was stopped along the way with a couple of queries directed to him as Head Girl which he dispatched as quickly as possible, then let himself through the doors to the terrace.

In the distance he saw a shadow, standing still, and made his way over. Hermione was standing quite still, looking back at the castle, her only movement the exhaled breath that hung momentarily in the night. She didn't seem to have noticed him approach.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly as he reached her. She was paler than he usually was, and definitely distracted. The hard edge that she kept as his public persona had softened in her face and she seemed distant, lost in memories. He had a fairly good idea where her memories had taken her; they took him to the same place not infrequently.

No, not really; but their short conversation brought her back to the present and confirmed their communication. Time and understanding stretched and accommodated more than mere words, a coiling warmth that dispelled the chill night air between them. The wrong time, and the wrong place, and they both understood that although Hermione was the first to acknowledge it, sending him back to the Ball with a promise to meet later.

Her voice was as unsteady as his thoughts, which tripped over each other with possibilites and warnings and dismissal and more possibilities and - in the end - a certain inevitability. Not now, but a question of when and not if.

"I will see you after the Ball."

The sounds of the dance brought him back to the present, out of an speculative future, as he left Hermione and headed back to the Hall. It was difficult to go back into the noise and pressure and the battering assault of the tide of relationships forming, ending, changing, within the teenagers there.

Moments after he re-entered the Hall, Snape felt a touch on his shoulder and turned quickly. Ron stood there, face slightly red.

"Where were you?" he asked, and Snape thought he had wanted to ask something else.

"Outside, getting some air," said Snape.

"Oh. Good idea. I could do with that - will you come with me?"

Snape eyed the boy curiously; the request was unusual. Ron usually assumed Hermione would follow at his command, or so it seemed, and the request made it impossible to say 'no' without ensuring that he wrecked Hermione's friendship - and that wasn't something he was prepared to do.

He followed Ron back outside, away from the immediate bustle and crowd, back into the chill air. Snape instinctively looked over towards the shadow that he had left moments before but Hermione had left already, presumably heading for the dungeons.

Snape shivered, the chill now seeping into him - the short foray back into the Hall had done nothing to warm him up - and was startled to feel Ron's arm come around him.

"Let me warm you up."

Oh please, no, please, no ... no ... no. This wasn't happening, this could _not_ happening. If Snape had thought someone was laughing themselves stupid earlier - well, whoever that someone was, they were probably a candidate for St Mungo's now.

Before he could move, he found himself caught up by Ron and held in an embrace with the touch of his mouth now on his own ... no. No!

He had obviously spoken, at last, because Ron suddenly let him go and stumbled back.

"I'm sorry," they apologised at the same time, and then stopped, Ron red and embarrassed and Snape white with shock. Snape swallowed and gestured for Ron to continue, trying hard not to give in to the temptation to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I - I'm sorry," he said again. "I just ... well ... I hoped ..."

For the sake of Hermione's friendship, Snape took pity on Ron and shook his head slowly. "I wish," he said slowly, "I wish I could be who you want me to be. What you want me to be. But it just wouldn't work, Ron. We're too different - I'd drive you mad in no time, always in the library and studying and so on. Let's just leave it at that, can we?"

"Can we?" echoed Ron, slightly bitterly. "You can just forget that I've made an idiot of myself? I'm not sure I can."

This was the last thing Snape wanted to have to deal with now; his mind was still full of that last exchange with Hermione, shot through as it was with subtext and more. All he wanted to was find his way to the dungeons and explore _that_ conversation, not stand here and massage the ego of a teenage boy in _this_ conversation; he knew too well just how much damage he could do to Ron right now, if he so chose. But Hermione would not so choose, so neither could he.

In the end, he had no choice to make - Ron muttered something about needing some time on his own and headed off into the shadows of the garden; Snape knew better than to follow and went, instead, in search of Harry. He found him dancing with Ginny Weasley - unsurprisingly. Harry had clearly known what Ron was going to do - when he saw Snape his eyes widened and he looked behind him, his face becoming worried when he obviously didn't see Ron. He whispered something to Ginny, who nodded, and then made his way over to Snape.

"I think Ron might prefer to talk to you right now," he said.

Harry nodded. "I was expecting to have to do something like that," he explained. "I tried to talk him out of it - nothing personal," he added hastily, "but it wasn't one of his brighter ideas. But it's difficult to talk someone out of acting on hormones," he concluded wryly.

"Thank you for trying," said Snape drily.

"Are you ok?" asked Harry. Snape nodded.

"I'll be fine, but I think Ron is feeling a bit of a prat right now."

"There's one at every Valentine Ball," muttered Harry. "I'll go and check on him, though."

"I'll leave now," said Snape, "so you can bring him back in here to drown his sorrows if you want to. I'm tired anyway," he added as he thought Harry was about to protest that he shouldn't have to leave.

He had every intention of leaving anyway - with the appointment to keep in the dungeons he had no intention of remaining in the Hall in any case.

The corridors were cool and darkened with night, small pools of light from the sconces dispelling only part of the gloom as he headed down the well-worn path to the dungeons and his - Hermione's - rooms. The music and babble of the Hall faded rapidly away until the only sounds were his soft footfalls and softer breathing. Snape's heart thudded in his ears, though.

He slipped through the office and knocked on the private chambers' door, suddenly uncharacteristically shy.

The door swung silently open and he entered, hearing the catch click shut as the door swung back behind him. Hermione stood by the fireplace; her hair was more disarrayed than usual, as though she had been dragging her hands through it. The room was warm, the fire lit and built up. She looked up as he stood there, and he saw her eyes glittering in the candlelight; not tears, but something more elemental - and Snape tried to convince himself that it was nothing more than a reflection of his own feelings.

That conviction was rendered impossible as they met without speaking in the middle of the room and Snape found himself, for the second time in half an hour, enfolded in an embrace and the touch of lips on his.

This time, though, there was no disgust and nothing to make him pull away; only a burning need to get closer and to open to both the embrace and the kiss.

The fire cracked and hissed behind them as a log split on the fire; neither noticed and Snape felt only Hermione against him, around him. All sensation narrowed to her, the sensation of completion and utter abandonment of each in and to the other; the pressure of her warm, soft, mouth on his - tension dissolving between them as they came closer still and, in the end, Snape knew only Hermione. Nothing else existed and nothing else mattered, right here and right now.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Fire and the Rose Part 35**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 35 - The Refiner's Fire_

Hermione had fled the gardens; or at least left at with a purposeful stride - Snape did not flee and she retained enough presence of mind to realise that the Head of Slytherin could not be seen running through the school like an hysterical school girl. That being said, not even for Dumbledore could she face another encounter with the seething mass of teenage hormones that were currently permeating the Great Hall. For this one evening discipline at Hogwarts would have to be maintained without the aid of Professor Snape; she needed too badly to get back to her rooms, to find some quiet place where she could order her thoughts and decide what it was that she had just done.

She rounded the now-familiar corridor in the dungeons, brow furrowed with the effort of keeping in character, anxiety and introspection unconsciously intensifying the air of focussed energy that usually surrounded her. Her demeanour would have been enough to inspire terror in any student foolish enough not to avoid Snape's habitual stalking grounds, but the irony of it was that there could have been an orgy of Hufflepuffs behind every statue and she would have been oblivious to it all, so wrapped was she in the shifting sands of her own confusion.

Fortunately, some merciful goddess was watching over her, and she reached her rooms without ignoring some obvious infraction of the rules; an action that would have provoked more comment than just about anything else she could have done - well, perhaps not including what she was about to contemplate doing ...

She disarmed the wards automatically, feeling the familiar sense of relief as the door clicked shut behind her, letting the school fade out around her, moving instinctively between the furniture as if it was truly now her space. The fire had been tended in her absence and was giving out a welcome degree of heat. Hermione moved closer to it, leaning against the side of the fireplace and breathing deeply, fighting the chill of February and her own whirling thoughts.

The smell of night still clung to her robes and it abruptly took her back to the conversation in the garden. She had invited him back to her rooms after the ball. Or at least she had suggested that he look in to check his experiments. What did he think she had meant? Had he heard a further invitation to study or did he think there was more to it than that? Suppose she had misread him? Suppose she was wrong? Suppose...

Hermione shook her head vigorously as if the movement would cause her unruly thoughts to shake down into order, like mercury in a thermometer. She shivered and tried to tell herself that it was the cold, that he would look into the Potions Room and simply check the cauldrons, that he wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- come, that it was too complicated, that she didn't care. She ran her hand through her hair, dishevelling it more than usual and moved away from the fire across the rug, but her thoughts came with her. Another absent gesture tousled her hair even more, and she stopped her pacing. It was a pointless exercise to tell herself that she didn't care when the tightness in her chest and her throat and her groin all told a very different story.

 _What was more to the point was, would he have changed his mind between leaving her and leaving the Ball?_

Even tentatively approaching the idea was enough to make her throat close painfully and her eyes prickle. She bit her lip in annoyance at herself for surrendering to this adolescent drama. When - _if_ , she told herself sternly - he arrived, she would be calm, she would offer him tea, they would discuss this like adults and come to sensible decision about what they were going to do.

She moved back towards the fire, disarranging her hair for the third time in quick succession and began to plan in her mind exactly what she would say.

She was halfway through devising a plan that she considered suitable, when there was a light tap at the door. It was a movement of air, a brush of scent too subtle to identify, an awareness that he was in the room. She turned to face him, poised offers of tea composed and ready on her tongue and found that other instincts, deeper and more powerful than the mind, were already moving her legs across the room. In the space of a few steps she took in his face, pale with high spots of colour in the cheeks, his lips slightly parted, tongue darting out to moisten them, his eyes, shadowed as if he were not quite certain of his reception. As they met her arms went round him, pulling him in to her, mouth blindly seeking his, any prospect of rational discussion swept away by other, more primal, imperatives.

In the middle of Snape's rooms, she moulded herself to him, responding pressure for pressure, losing herself in the feel of his mouth on hers, opening under her, tongue touching her mouth lightly, gently, almost asking her permission to continue. And she touched back, just as gently, sliding her tongue over his and into his open mouth, as Viktor had once encouraged her to do, but it was a fleeting thought and it had been nothing like this, nothing like rush of taste and touch and smell that invaded her senses and sent the blood rushing to that place between her legs. She felt Snape shift against her and a lightning stab of sensation shot through straight to her pleasure centres. Without intending to she made a small sound deep in her throat. And realised that she was getting distinctly hard.

Whether he had noticed her arousal or whether the sound had distracted him, she didn't know, but he broke away from her and stood back, just looking at her, hands still resting on her upper arms, rubbing gently. His face was flushed and he was breathing heavily, but he didn't appear to be about to say anything. She knew that this was the point at which this could be stopped. She could tell him to go, and he would simply retreat. Or he could move away, muttering embarrassed words of apology and excuse and she would make no move to stop him. Except that she wasn't willing to take that step; to be the first to step back over the line into safety and sanity. One of his hands moved from her arm to stroke the side of her face, tracing her angular cheekbone and running across her mouth. She reached up and caught his hand, pressing the tips of his fingers to her lips and tracing the finger pads with her tongue. His eyes flickered briefly shut.

Clearly he was no more willing to back away from this than she was.

She lifted her other hand and cupped his cheek. It felt smoother than she remembered and more forelgn than she expected. He moistened his lips again.

"Hermione," he said quietly, in a tone that could have been a question.

"It's all right," she said, feeling that he needed an answer and uncomfortably aware of the pressure in her groin.

He turned his head towards her hand and kissed it, and she felt his tongue tasting her flesh as she had tasted his.

And no more words, no more discussion was necessary between them. In unspoken agreement they moved towards the bedroom, not speaking, not letting go of the other. Once inside, Hermione spoke a single word and soft light spilled around them. She turned to face and felt absurdly unsure of herself, considering what had happened between them only minutes before. But now, now that they were well past the point of no return, she was uncertain as to how to make the next move without misstepping; for the first time in her life not knowing how to ask a question, or even if she should. She swallowed nervously, wondering if there was something she should say or do, wondering if there was some kind of unwritten rule that the man should make the first move. Snape, himself, wasn't doing or saying anything to help; he was just studying her with the same intentness that he devoted to his potions making. Acutely aware of the friction of her clothes over her crotch and the dryness of her mouth, she took a small step forward and tentatively placed her mouth on his.

And it was as if something had been released. Snape's arms came up around her and once again she lost herself in an exploration of his mouth. But this time his mouth was not enough; she wanted to explore his body - her body. After all, this _was_ what she had been fantasising about for the last few months. Not breaking the kiss, but moving back a fraction, she reached for the buttons of Snape's jacket, fumbling a little and jumping at his touch when he moved to help her. Together they got the jacket open and she ran her hands over the silk vest top that he was wearing underneath, to cup one of his breasts. The material slid under her fingers and she felt something hard underneath - his nipple. Hermione had always enjoyed the feel of luxurious fabrics against her skin and she guessed that Snape was the same, given his taste in cashmere. Gently, she pinched the nipple through the cloth and was rewarded by an inarticulate noise that seemed to have some kind of direct connection to her crotch. She shuddered in response and stepped back, pulling him towards the bed.

He needed no more encouragement. Somewhere in the short space between upright and horizontal she managed to shrug off her teaching robes and her own jacket and kick off her boots. She was not aware of Snape letting go of her, but he too had managed to get down to silk top and trousers by the time he lay down beside her.

And then she was lost in an exploration of him, hands and lips roaming over his face and neck and shoulders. With one hand she pushed up the top that he was wearing and he moved to allow her to get it over his head. There was no denying his response to her; the nipples outlined by the fabric of his bra made that obvious enough. Gently, almost curiously, she ran her finger over the fabric, over the hard point within. Snape shuddered and arched towards her and unconsciously, she smiled.

In that summer of her fourth year, Hermione had undertaken a certain amount of practical research in the field of international human relations with one Viktor Krum. However, it had been a short lived project and the opportunity had not really presented itself since; the need to keep Harry and Ron alive intervening for one thing. But that, and some other detailed investigations into her own body, had given her a very clear idea of what felt good. She cupped Snape's breast with one hand again, and squeezed gently. As he moved into her touch, she slid her hand round to his back, following the edge of his bra, until she got to the catch. With the deftness of years of practice she flicked it open, and then slid her hand back again to pull the material away to free his breasts.

She drew her finger over the now naked flesh, and this time he whimpered. The sound resonated directly in her crotch and she fought the urge to touch herself there; she didn't want this to be over yet, not this quickly. She stroked Snape again, circling the nipple, caught up in the feel of the familiar flesh, knowing how it should feel, and yet not knowing; not experiencing it through two sites of touch, only being able to judge by reaction not direct effect.

She had explored with Viktor, but it had never gone further than touching and kissing, which meant that she was a virgin. But she had some very detailed and specific ideas as to how she wanted her first time to be, and she realised, with a shock, that this was the perfect chance to play that scenario out; the ultimate auto-erotic fantasy. A pulse of lust drove through her as she looked at her own body, suddenly wanting to possess it from outside as well as from inside, to experience it externally in a way that she would never be able to after the mandrakes were ready.

She bent her head and kissed the soft flesh of Snape's breast, tasting the skin, sensation filtered through taste buds that were not part of the same body. Trailing small kisses she moved to the nipple and took it in her mouth, swirling her tongue experimentally over the bud, hard in the middle of so much softness. She had never realised how soft her body was, she thought, as she ran her hands over the exposed skin; nor how stark a contrast the small points of hardness were.

Snape's hands were roaming her now, burrowed under the shirt that she still wore, running up her back, tracing the muscles, clenching occasionally as she sucked and once, experimentally, withdrew enough to blow on the wet nipple, causing him to choke. She shifted her head to suck on the other nipple and one of his hands buried itself in her hair, pulling her head in closer in encouragement. The scratch of fabric against her skin was becoming unbearable to her and she suddenly needed to be rid of it; certainly if she intended this to go in any way like her fantasy.

She lifted her head and pushed away enough to loosen the cuffs of the shirt - the top buttons had somehow come undone already - and pull the whole thing over her head. She bent, intending to take up where she had left off, but was stopped by Snape's hands on her chest, flat palmed, running over her pectoral muscles and brushing over her own nipples and oh! - that sent an electrical shock straight into her groin, causing her hips to buck reflexively. She shut her eyes as the hands continued to caress, followed by his mouth, and then one nipple was enclosed in warm wetness that teased and pulled and blew and drew out small noises from deep within her.

The sensation in her groin was now almost painful and her mind was becoming clouded by an overwhelming male need to attend to it. Another reflexive movement in response to Snape's mouth told her that she needed to be free of her clothes if she wasn't going to make a complete fool of herself. With one hand she reached down to undo her trousers. As if that was a signal, Snape drew back and began to do the same thing. Once naked, her erection was visible, hard and dark, and she was dimly surprised that it wasn't openly throbbing. Driven by her own desire and raging male lust, and determined that this was going to be as good as she could make it, she bent towards Snape to kiss one of his breasts again, and ran a hand down his stomach towards the dark curls at the top of his legs. This was how it should be, she thought; a hand caressing a rounded stomach, brushing the curls and then fingers probing, seeking out that little point that she knew was there.

Yes, there it was, another nub of hardness wrapped in soft wet warmth. She stroked, her touch sliding over the wetness, knowing now how this would feel for him, that the edge of unexpectedness would send him spiralling upwards, just as it would have done to her. She was no longer aware of the distinction between him and her, teacher and student - and who _was_ who in this tangled situation - was she Severus or Hermione or both? She increased the rhythm and pressure of her movements, long confident strokes, playing with the textures, feeling the reaction of Snape's body. He made a soft mewling sound, a sound that seemed somehow alien, a response that she had never evoked in herself.

It sent her perilously close to the edge of self-control, despite wanting to prolong the moment, to draw as much out of it as she could. Acting more on instinct than knowledge, she maneouvered herself so that she was poised above him, looking down at him, taking in the flush that covered most of his body, the unfocussed pupils, so far dilated that they were as black as her own. She closed her own eyes, trying to still her breathing, control her body even at this point.

"Hermione?" The question was thick, distant, as if he was having trouble speaking. She opened her eyes again to meet an uncertain gaze. "Are you .. I mean ... am I ... ?" He tailed off, visibly embarrassed.

She felt her throat close at the fact that he had thought to ask, and then realised that the issue was probably a more pertinent one for him than for her.

"Yes," she whispered. "But it'll only hurt for a moment. It'll be all right, I promise."

She had no idea if that was actually right or not, but it seemed very important to reassure him just then. Which led on to another consideration. She knew her own experience, or lack of it, but she had no idea of Snape's and it didn't seem like a good moment to bring it up, given his obvious discomfort with the subject. She assumed that, given his age, he must have had _some_ previous experience, although she certainly wasn't about to dwell on where he might have got it. His body would remember what she didn't know, she decided, just like it had with flying and dancing.

"It's like riding a bicycle," she thought with a sense of the surreal, "you never forget."

"I have never ridden a bicycle, Hermione," came the muttered response.

It startled her slightly; she hadn't realised that she had spoken out loud. Too bemused with need and lust to analyse his comment further than a vague idea that he must have taken her literally, she murmured another reassurance, brushing her mouth across his. Trusting her body to know what it was doing, she positioned herself and felt fire spike through her as Snape's hand closed around her, guiding to where she needed to be.

That touch, firm and gentle, was what finally broke her control; the point at which driving physical need overrode any semblance of rational thought. Instinct and desire took hold, and she drove forward into tight wet heat, pushing through the resistance, barely hearing Snape's startled cry as she buried herself in him. That friction sent shocks of sensation deep into her bones, nothing like her lone explorations, more intense, more shattering, more ... just more. Aware of the body beneath her, but beyond any possibility of restraining herself any longer, she thrust into the darkness, no longer aware of where she ended and he began. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and the blood rushing in her ears and the fingernails digging into her back and the movements under her, meeting her and matching her, pushing her onwards until there was nothing but him and her and sound and taste and touch and tension and release.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Fire and the Rose Part 36**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 36 - The Close Pressure That Makes Me Or Any Man Drunk, Fainting With Excess_

Ohhh yessss ... yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes ... ohhhhhh ... oh yes. She was _never_ going to get this body back; not when it could feel like this ...

Snape was never quite sure whether he had actually passed out; certainly, by the time he was fully aware of where he was, he was half-asleep and drowsing in a mutual embrace with Hermione. She, in the time-honoured manner of men everywhere, had fallen asleep. He wasn't particularly surprised - she had managed to hold on rather longer than he thought he would have done, in her position.

It had been a tumble of an evening, from one emotion to another and headlong into passion. From the door of his - her - rooms to the bed had been a waltz of feeling, of touch and daring and absorption and very little thought. Thought was decidedly overrated; he had barely had enough presence of mind before they were lost completely in each other to mumble one of a range of charms that were certainly not covered in the standard syllabus.

He rather thought that Hermione would not appreciate the return of her body with a developing internal accessory.

The steady rise and fall of her chest under his head, and the thudding beat of her heart, gave an echoing rhythm to the thoughts that fell through his mind; newly-formed memories relived brought a subtle smile to his face. The warmth of Hermione against him, under him, was an arousing comfort and Snape wondered when she would awake. How she would awake. For a moment the thought that she might regret this stilled his smile but then he remembered her determination and more than full participation. He thought regrets would be unlikely.

She had been involved to the point that he had held back - memory, albeit incomplete, had given him a fairly good idea just how close to the edge she had been when he had walked into the room; and that arousal had only grown. Snape had given into curiosity only just enough to touch, to taste, her nipples - the sensitivity of his current body had made him wonder just what he had been missing with his own in his rather cursory dealings with his body.

Regardless of experience, or lack thereof, Snape had been all too well aware just exactly how focussed his hormones would make Hermione. To have touched her - given in to his own curiosity - would, he thought, have sent her flying solo and he was too selfish to allow that, at least the first time. Not long after that, though, he had been beyond all thought.

It had been an odd sensation - detachment and involvement and all the while the coursing arousal fired by Hermione's determined exploration of their situation. It had been astonishing, to be the recipient of all that concentration and experimentation. He had wanted - still wanted - to return that same exploration; curiosity alone demanded that but, beyond curiosity, he wanted to see Hermione react and know that he had done that for her.

He looked at Hermione now, sleeping and relaxed, sprawled almost boneless across the mattress with the sheets tangled in her legs. Black hair spread across the pillow, and her left arm was flung across Snape, holding him to her. He eased back, just enough to study her for a moment before he gave into the warmth again and returned to the embrace.

For a moment, one single solitary moment, he realised that - perhaps - he wasn't quite as dreadful a prospect as he had always thought himself. Perhaps Alice Lacock wasn't entirely deluded. All the same, he didn't believe he would ever consider himself attractive. It was, nonetheless, very strange to be aroused more by the figure he saw in the mirror than by the figure he held in bed. Snape thought for a moment, wondering whether anyone else had ever felt that way. Then he laughed.

Only one. Gilderoy Lockhart.

"What's amusing you?" asked a sleepy voice, still thickened with the remnants of arousal. Snape felt the gravelled tones as a visceral shock down his spine, winced, and abruptly remembered just how inexperienced this body had been until half an hour ago. Hermione had awoken - more or less - and was looking at him quizzically. Snape regarded her for a moment but saw no sighs of regret or remorse. He smiled.

"I was just thinking how odd it was to find my reflection in a mirror more interesting than ..." his voice trailed off as he tried to think of a way to finish the sentence that wouldn't sound insulting to Hermione. He was more tired than he had thought, if he had allowed himself to begin a sentence to which he hadn't calculated the ending. "Anyway," he finished, eventually, "it occurred to me that there was probably only one other person - other than ourselves - who would think that way."

"Lockhart!" Hermione pronounced with glee. "No wonder you laughed. I probably ought to be insulted, if you're thinking of another man whilst you're in bed with me."

Snape spluttered, recovered, and then winced again before he could reply. His still drowsy body was protesting an increasing soreness.

"Oh!" Hermione had obviously worked out the reason for his wince. She leant over the side of the bed and picked up her discarded shirt, dampened a corner in the water glass on the bedside table and turned to him. Discomfort or no discomfort, Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that; you _have_ to be sore, sorely? And this will wash out - I haven't yet seen a stain that the house elves can't deal with."

He nodded, reluctantly, then hissed softly as Hermione settled herself beside him and gently pushed one of his knees aside. The damp cloth was cool and welcome, though, as she stroked carefully. Snape let himself fall back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. The sensation was changing as Hermione worked, moving from slight soreness to an electric arousal at her touch. He bit his lower lip, trying not to moan. At this point, he wasn't prepared to take anything for granted and was simply grateful that she hadn't fled the room on waking. To suggest that he might perhaps - definitely - be interested in a repeat performance might just prompt that flight and he wasn't prepared to take the risk.

Hermione paused, and Snape wondered whether he had made a noise after all. He lifted his head a little, to look at her. She was looking back at him contemplatively, with a glint in his eyes that made him both afraid and even more aroused.

Then she smiled, and the remnants of fear fled before a spiking desire. "That's cleaned things up, but I think a more traditional remedy is still needed - do you want me to kiss it better?"

Snape swallowed and almost choked as her voice dropped still further on that last question, skittering along his spine again and sending every last nerve ending into high alert.

The question was obviously rhetorical, for Hermione bent over him without waiting for an answer, and Snape fell back on the pillow once more at the touch of her mouth upon him. Oh yessss ... and he'd thought fingers were good? He thanked any deity that cared to listen for Hermione's uninhibited exploration of her own body.

That thanks inspired another round of thoughts, befuddled and mildly incoherent as most of his senses concentrated on Hermione's inspired attentions, but he started to wonder ...

Hermione wasn't the only one in the room who was curious - and he definitely wasn't the only one in the room who was aroused; he bit his lip again, staring at her erection. All it would take would be a subtle shift in position ...

All that held him back was history; it had been more than a decade since he had last been Imperio'd for someone else's pleasure but the humiliation and disgust still lingered. And yet ... and yet he had his own measure of curiosity. He also thought Hermione unlikely to hold his head and force herself into his mouth if he chose to explore.

And, damnit it all, this was _his_ body. Even it was temporarily and involuntarily on loan to Hermione for the duration.

Ohhhhh ...

He shuddered at a particularly effective move on Hermione's part, then smiled at the look of glee on her face as she glanced up at him; she was enjoying this entirely too much. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps all she was enjoying was herself, but that rather dampening thought was laid to rest with her next words, slightly muffled as she returned to her self-appointed task.

"I thought you'd like that, Severus ..."

The touch of her lips, her tongue, caressing and licking and sucking and ... what the hell had he been thinking about? Thought was - ohhhh - overrated. Very overrated. He arched and twisted, pushing up against her mouth in a desperation for more - more - just more ... and then more was all there was and he was caught up in the ecstasy of the moment, his hands clenched in the sheets as he became pure reaction.

When the world reformed itself into comprehension in his mind once more Snape found Hermione lying next to him, watching as he gradually focussed on her.

"Alright?" she asked, gently. "I didn't ... push you too far?" She sounded worried, and Snape wondered whether she was expecting him to bolt in the same way that he had thought she might.

"Feel free to push me as far as you like," he reassured her drily. Hermione's reaction to that was a smirk that should have worried him but, instead, drew lazy sparks across his body. The old remedies were obviously the best; all suggestion of soreness was gone. Well, it was gone for now. He had few illusions as to the likelihood of waking so comfortably tomorrow morning. Or later this morning. He had lost track of time and wasn't inclined to to worry about it. One of the advantages of being Head Girl; no-one would miss him in Gryffindor Tower tonight, and there were no lessons to wake for on the morning after a Ball.

Snape let his gaze linger over Hermione again. They had time ... plenty of time. His earlier thoughts came back again and this time he acted before second thoughts emerged from the shadows of the first. He trailed his fingers over the soft warm skin of her erection, letting it drag over the hard shaft that had to be almost painful - he looked up and caught an expression of mingled ecstasy and agony over her face as he drew his thumbnail gently over the groove in the tip.

"Oh god. Oh!"

Snape smiled again at the sudden exclamation as he shifted on the bed and suddenly engulfed her in his mouth. Salt and sour and ... Hermione. It couldn't possibly _be_ Hermione that he tasted but, all the same, it felt as though he tasted the idea of her as he lapped and played his tongue along the vein that had swelled to prominence as he enjoyed her. It was strange; stranger than simply caressing her had been. He nipped quickly at the opening at the very tip before soothing with his tongue and listened for the expected gasp and shudder. To know - intimately - what would produce such a reaction and almost feel it with her as he continued to lap, soothe, suck, and nuzzle. Each touch of his mouth on her skin echoed in decades of memories of his hands on the same skin.

It took little more for Hermione's gasps and shudders to be almost continuous as he drew her in, sucking hard as his hands caressed where his mouth couldn't reach. The sheer pleasure of listening to her reaction, to the hissing of his name as she came hard in his mouth, rewrote every old memory, every unwelcome recollection.

"Alright?" he asked as she opened her eyes at last, unclenching her fists from the sheets. "I didn't push you too far?" He couldn't quite put the same inflection on that question as she had, but he came close and, from the lazy smile that lit up her eyes, Hermione found it close enough.

"Umm ... let me think ... oh yes ... feel free to push me as far as you like," she replied, pushing herself up on one elbow and leaning over to kiss him. It was an unhurried kiss, deep and drawing them both in again, tasting themselves and the other in each other.

"Have you done that before?" she asked as they parted, and Snape had to laugh at the look of horror on her face as she realised what she had asked. "I mean ... you just ... oh god." She buried her face in her hands, then looked up, smiling ruefully at him. Snape wondered, absently, whether he had ever smiled as much in an evening as she had done tonight.

"I .. you ... it just felt so good. I'm not asking your preferences -"

"I'd say you were entitled to ask, given where we are and what we've been doing," said Snape in as dry a tone as he could muster, knowing she would take it as intended, as humour. "For the record, yes, I have done that before," he added, trying to keep his voice from turning curt and cold, "but it wasn't my choice. Nor would it be under normal circumstances."

Intelligence was a blessing; he needed to make no more explanation. Hermione simply asked "Imperio?" and clearly understood exactly what he hadn't told her. "You didn't have to ..." she added.

"I wanted to - and I would do it again. For you." And only you, was the unspoken qualification.

Silence enveloped the room; in the night outside, snow fell once more in the February landscape, chill and cold as it outlined the trees in the Forbidden Forest and the ramparts of the castle. From the dungeon rooms, the falling flakes drifted across the window, lit golden from the candle-light within. Snape and Hermione lay entwined together, heartbeats slowing as they fell into a near-sleep; Snape wasn't sure which had reached first, only that they had reached for each other - all else was irrelevant. He watched the flakes ease their way down outside, as lazy as he felt. A gentle, apparently absent-minded, stroking of Hermione's fingers at his waist was the only indication that Hermione was not asleep; her eyes were shut, a half-smile on her face. Snape drifted into sleep without noticing.

He awoke some time later to a more deliberate touch as Hermione trailed her fingers over his face, outlining his lips and brushing her thumb against them; her skin - his skin - was slightly calloused and left a trail of sparkling arousal. She seemed to have watched him wake, an intent look on her face.

"You were right," she said, in a hushed whisper. "About Lockhart. It's ... strange. Like making love to two people - myself and you, together and apart. I want to know how _I_ feel, but I want to make _you_ react."

It had stopped snowing; nothing but the black of night was visible outside as Snape nodded slowly. Her fingers had curled around his jaw, her knuckles rubbing gently against the skin there. He was warm, his legs entangled with hers; from the pressure against his thigh, Snape realised Hermione was holding back now. He wondered idly what time it was; it would be profoundly unfair if Hermione had better powers of recuperation in his body than he did - but perhaps it was habit on his part, to go to sleep; he had found that sort of exercise very useful when he was reluctant to take yet more Dreamless Sleep Potions. He raised himself up onto one elbow, looking over to the clock that silently told time in the candlelight.

3am. Life wasn't entirely unfair, thankfully. He was about to sink back on bed when Hermione took advantage of his position and pulled him on top of her. He lay on her chest, resting his head on his arms and looked up at her. The pressure that had pushed against his thigh was now nudging more insistently between them.

"Are you still sore?" she asked. The ulterior motive to the question hung in the air between them, almost tangible, and Snape could do nothing more than smile as he was caught up in a renewed arousal; the hope and desire written on Hermione's face was intoxicating.

"Oh, I'll survive," he drawled, "but what about you? I know you're not accustomed ..." His voice trailed off as he raised an eyebrow wickedly. "Unless you've been entertaining yourself at my expense?"

Hermione blushed and Snape bit back a laugh; he hadn't realised his body was still capable of that response - he thought he had outgrown it with the onset of puberty. The blush didn't last long, though, and Hermione bit back.

"I would hope you haven't missed the opportunity to do the same - it _is_ rather fun." She was still a little pink as she spoke the words and Snape was sure he could scent bravado behind them; he suddenly found her utterly adorable, a mixture of self-knowledge, embarrassment and understanding.

"I doubt I've done anything you wouldn't do in the same position," he answered with a twist to his smile. Hermione simply laughed and lifted herself to kiss him.

"Likewise," she murmured against his mouth. Snape lost himself for a moment in the fleeting touch of her mouth on his and then moaned softly as Hermione's hips bucked slightly against his, pushing her erection against him. He lifted slightly, reaching for her between them, suddenly desperate for the sensation of her inside him once more. Hermione moved faster, her fingers brushing against his wet folds as she eased herself between them. One push from her as he lowered himself onto her and they were together again, caught and held in the moment.

"Ohhhhh ..." was all he could say for a moment as he felt her fill him, hot and hard as she slid into him.

Hermione seemed more in control this time, less carried away on a tide of hormones; she was watching him intently, her own arousal clear but held enough in check for her curiosity to surface again.

"What does it feel like?" she asked, as he opened his eyes and propped himself up, his hands on her chest as he straddled her. He thought for a moment, trying to put the sensation into words.

"Full - just full enough to feel it, feel you - and hot - but necessary. Like a part of me that was missing is suddenly there again."

He had not, perhaps, picked the best phrase - Hermione tried to hold back her amusement at the comment and, he was grateful, avoided the obvious comment and settled instead for a dancing laughter in her eyes as he shrugged in acknowledgement. Then they both laughed and he leaned down to kiss her into silence, shifting subtly as he did so and delighting in the glazed look that came over her face just before his mouth met hers.

When they parted they were both breathing heavily, panting, and the rhythm their mouths had started continued in their bodies as they moved together. Snape tried to hold back, casting around for something to say, something to prolong this ... he remembered Hermione's question.

"What does it feel like?" he asked her. It was more than a delaying tactic; he wanted to know.

"Tight and warm - like being held in a gently insistent fist that's rippling and pushing," said Hermione eventually, slowing to match his rhythm. "Something like that - I can't quite describe it. You know what I'm talking about, though."

Snape shook his head and waited.

A look of dawning realisation spread across her face. "You don't know ... you must have ... oh. You didn't mean bicycling, did you?" she asked.

"No more than you did," replied Snape.

"I'm sorry," stammered Hermione. "I didn't know ... I thought ..."

"Don't apologise," said Snape quickly. "I had no intention of stopping to tell you; it took most of my concentration to check whether you were - whether it was going to ... I didn't want to startle either of us by finding out directly later."

"At least you _could_ concentrate," muttered Hermione ruefully. Snape laughed.

"Barely."

The conversation was in danger of becoming too introspective; no amount of conversation would alter things and he rather thought they would be better off concentrating on what they could do, not on what they had done. He leant down again into a kiss; Hermione met him enthusiastically and he was reassured by the answering groan as he pressed against her.

The kiss, the push, and conversation was over; the room grew warmer, candles guttered and flickered in the darkness as they met, drew apart and met again with a push, punctuated by whispers and moans that grew in intensity if not in volume until Snape choked on Hermione's name as he arched backwards, shuddering. A moment later he felt her swell harder still into him and take up his shuddering into her own, his name on her lips.

Snape let himself fall forwards on Hermione again, careful not to move so much that she slipped from him; he wanted this moment of connection. He felt her hand in his hair and looked up; she cupped the back of his head and lifted her head to kiss him again. This was a slow, soft, meeting of mouths, drowsy with exhaustion and all the sweeter for it.

"Alright?" she asked eventually, leaving one last kiss on his mouth as she let her head drop back onto the pillow.

"Ummm," said Snape sleepily, finding it difficult to muster words. The evening ran through his mind in memories, gold-tinged and precious. "You?" he asked, finally, wondering whether Hermione had fallen asleep.

"Yes," she replied after a pause. "Yes, I will be. No reason not to be."

Snape looked up; her words sounded slightly odd. She was watching him, apparently anticipating his reaction because she put a finger to his lips.

"It's fine - I was just wondering whether this would make any difference in the classroom but it won't," she said emphatically. "This -" and she indicated the two of them, pale skin against pale winter skin tinged gold in the light of the last remaining candle, "- this is an expression, not a definition. It won't be any different - if things were going to change, they would have changed by now. And I won't give a hostage to fortune - not after all these months."

Snape nodded, kissed the finger on his lips, and nodded again.

They slept, at last.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Fire and the Rose Part 37**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 37 - The End of Days_

The aftermath of bliss always comes with complications.

Only in Muggle films, reflected Hermione, did the protagonists ride off into the sunset, fading into the credits, happily glossing over the ramifications and consequences of their actions. Real life was not quite so neat and tidy. Real life had ragged edges and loose threads. In real life you had to clear up after the party.

They had fallen asleep in each other's arms, sated, drugged with experience and unlooked for passion. She awoke with the first flickerings of dawn, her body obeying a routine long established, and had already reached for Snape, prompted by memory and the drowsy stirrings in her groin, before she realised that he might be feeling the aftereffects of the night rather more acutely than she. Snape sleepily turned towards her and his half- extended hand stilled as a visible wince passed across his face.

Hermione felt a pang of something that combined guilt, satisfaction and a hastily squashed burst of relief that he was going through this part of the loss of female virginity, not she. The male experience was considerably less painful, although the almost total loss of higher brain function was a little disconcerting, at least the first time that it happened.

"Are you very sore?" she asked a little ruefully.

Snape carefully shifted himself onto his back.

"It _does_ ache rather," he admitted after a moment.

"Ah," she responded, not really knowing what the etiquette of this moment was. In the light of dawn, with rather more control over her hormones, the more awkward aspects of their encounter were beginning to present themselves. She was startled out of her growing introspection by a warm caress that brushed teasingly over her crotch. She looked swiftly at Snape and was not that surprised to see a slightly knowing grin quirking his mouth.

"I thought as much," he said with a trace of humour.

"It's OK," she muttered, "I don't expect you feel much like anything anyway."

Unexpectedly, Snape was silent and she was astonished to see him chewing his lip; she wondered if he had realised that he had taken on that particular mannerism of hers. He appeared to be studying the ceiling, but his face was oddly intent.

"Would you be very offended if I said not really," he said eventually. He still wasn't looking towards her.

She pushed herself up onto one elbow and half turned so that she had a better view of him. His face was blank. She reached out to stroke the side of his face, tracing the line of his jaw. She could feel the muscles, tight under the skin, betraying his tension even though his voice was even. Bending towards him she placed her mouth gently on his.

"Of course not," she said softly. "Believe it or not, I really _can_ imagine how you feel."

That made his face relax and his mouth twitch again.

"Yes, I suppose you can," he conceded. There was a pause, and then he added, with a curious diffidence, "however, there are other ways that I could assist you, if you wished it."

She understood what he was offering and pulled back to study his face, unwilling that he should feel pressurised into doing something that he found distasteful. His eyes held something that spoke more of anticipation than disgust. But all the same ...

"Are you sure," she asked a little hesitantly, "I don't want to force you to do anything ...".

His eyes narrowed.

" _Miss Granger_ ," he drawled pointedly, getting as close to his normal Snape-ish tones as he had ever managed whilst using her voice, "has something happened to give you the impression that I would offer to do something that I found objectionable out of some hitherto undiscovered vein of altruism?"

The tone and the words and the glitter in his eyes reminded her sharply that this was Snape lying here with her and sent a pulse of arousal straight to her groin. She decided not to comment on any question of his "altruism" and instead simply arched one eyebrow.

"Well, _Professor Snape_ ," she responded, matching his tone, "if you're _offering_ ..."

Snape held her gaze provocatively for a moment and then bent his head. She closed her eyes as he began to trail his mouth down her breastbone.

Later - much later - they sat together in Hermione's rooms, dressed and as respectable as they were ever going to get considering that Snape was still wearing his clothes from the night before, sipping coffee and picking at breakfast. It had been fortunate that no one would expect either of them to be present that morning in the Great Hall, she thought. Even so, the meal still had disconcerting overtones of domesticity that she wasn't quite certain that she was ready for. Conversation was also a little difficult. There was no way that she could think of anything other than what had happened between them, and she knew that it would have to be addressed at some stage or other. However, she was pretty certain that now was not the time for that discussion; what little experience she did have with men had left her with no illusions as to the typical reaction of the male psyche to the phrase "We need to talk".

Snape was pensively chewing on his toast, staring into the middle distance, and she rather suspected that his thoughts were running along the same lines as hers. The silence lengthened, and for the first time in months Hermione began to wonder whether she should do or say something to break it. She was trying to compose a suitably appropriate phrase in her mind - and failing miserably - when Snape's gaze suddenly focussed on her.

"There's something that you need to know," he said abruptly. "About last night."

She felt her heart lurch in apprehension. Never mind the male psyche - _she_ definitely wan't up to an in-depth discussion of her feelings at the moment. Perhaps it really was genetic; possession of male anatomy automatically gave you a built in resistance to a public analysis of your emotions. Was this the moment when he told her that it had all been a dreadful mistake? Surely not. She swallowed.

"There is?" she said carefully.

Snape nodded, and studied his toast.

"Last night, before I left the ball, I received another ... ahem ... proposition."

Whatever Hermione had been expecting to hear, it hadn't been that. She sipped at her coffee, hoping that the familiar movement would steady her nerves. It was exactly the wrong moment to have a mouthful of hot liquid.

"It was from Mr Weasley," Snape amplified.

Hermione choked as the coffee went down the wrong way and threatened to come back out her nose. She was vaguely aware of Snape removing the cup from her hand as she alternated breathing with a sixty-a-day cough. A handkerchief was pushed into her hand so she could wipe her streaming eyes and blow her nose.

"Ron?" she croaked, when she could make any kind of noise that didn't sound like Arthur Weasley's dying Ford Anglia.

Snape nodded. Her eyes were still blurry with tears, but she could have sworn that he actually looked sheepish.

"Ron?" she repeated, more strongly this time. "How in hell did you manage that? What happened?"

Bestowing on the toast more attention than any other lightly burnt slice of bread had ever received in the history of magic or science, Snape recounted what had happened between him leaving Hermione in the gardens and meeting her in her rooms. By the end of the story Hermione had once more managed to separate breathing and swallowing, and was able to give voice to unobstructed outrage.

"You mean that when I get my body back I'm going to be faced with Ron Weasley in the throes of unrequited love? Alice Lacock was bad enough."

"I believe that I discouraged him sufficiently. I suspect that he will be suffering more from injured dignity than anything else."

Hermione reminded herself to breathe evenly, trying to get the idea of Ron kissing her out of her mind. Then, unbidden, came another image; that of Ron kissing Snape. Her outrage receded as the humour of the situation struck her. Her mouth twitched. She glanced at Snape, who was looking somewhere between bemused and irritated. Laughter welled up in her throat. She tried to stifle it, but failed completely. Snape glared across the table as she dabbed at her eyes, which were once more streaming tears.

"I'm sorry," she managed, "but can you imagine the look on Ron's face if he knew that he'd kissed _you_."

She was sure that Snape's disgust was exaggerated, and that set her off again.

"Once again, Hermione, I feel you are having way too much fun at my expense."

She wondered if he had intended the _double entendre_ , and was about to make some kind of comment, when he stood up suddenly.

"I believe I should return to my rooms," he announced, "no doubt someone - if only Miss Weasley - will wish for the gory details of last night."

"Just make sure Ginny only gets edited highlights," she admonished.

The remark drew a smile from him, for once without any kind of edge.

"You may be assured that whilst the account will certainly be heavily edited, it will definitely _not_ contain the highlights," he said softly.

She stood and moved closer to him.

"Thank you for letting Ron down gently," she said quietly, answering past his last words. "I know he's an idiot at times, but I wouldn't like to see him really hurt."

"I thought as much," he acknowledged. There was a pause and then he repeated, "I really should go."

She didn't want him to, but knew that he couldn't stay, not if they didn't want to broadcast the fact that Something Was Going On to the whole school and beyond. She nodded reluctantly.

"Thank you, Severus," she said again, this time meaning far more than Ron. She stepped forward and touched her lips to his, lightly, with no intention of starting anything, just wanting to confirm something between them.

Snape nodded once and then was gone.

Once again, an overwhelming shift in Hermione's life was greeted by the exterior world with blank indifference.

Completely oblivious to the stresses and dramas of her personal life, students arrived in the dungeons to be taught the art and science of potions, to fail to pay attention and to misbehave. Staff meetings were held and Quidditch matches took place. Life cannot be lived on a cocktail of adrenaline, hormones and introspection; eventually the mundane makes its presence felt. Even the pressure of her first classroom meeting with Snape was alleviated by the need to watch Neville Longbottom to ensure that he didn't cause any greater catastrophes. For Hermione that lesson had in fact see-sawed between torture and farce as, in her efforts not to show any favour, she had thrown such vicious insults in Snape's direction that she noticed Ron shifting protectively towards him.

Snape, himself, had made no comment on the incident, other than a rather dry aside that as a way of discouraging Mr Weasley it appeared to lack a certain effectiveness.

Whilst she might say that she wanted time to think through what was going on, Hermione admitted to herself that it was probably just as well that she did have to focus outside herself from time to time. Otherwise, she would have ended up sitting in her rooms, playing scenarios through her head, of greater or lesser plausibility and desirability, which would simply spiral off into infinity. As it was, the need to pay attention to prevent her pupils damaging themselves or others provided a welcome grounding.

She and Snape had had to continue to work closely together, of course. Even if they had decided to suspend the "project" there were still the workaday aspects of their lives to consider; teaching, homework, NEWTs - from both their perspectives. Necessity overrode personal feelings, as it had since the end of September.

The events of Valentine's Day had not repeated themselves. It was not a conscious decision on the part of either of them, as far as she knew. At least, there had been no overt discussion between them, no sitting down and mapping out of a plan setting out how they would deal with this. It had just somehow not seemed the right thing to do. That didn't mean that she wasn't acutely aware of him, working together or studying or marking or talking or just _sitting_. And the touches continued, more now, definite caresses or a brush of the lips; but no more.

Hermione looked up from the Arithmancy homework that she had been blankly staring at for the past fifteen minutes. There was no point in denying it; her concentration had been non-existent since Professor Sprout had gleefully announced in the heads of house meeting that the mandrakes were nearly mature - she had had to break up a particuarly rowdy party in Greenhouse Three during the night and confiscate some other illicit herbal substances. She had caught Dumbledore's twinkle across the room; she knew that he wouldn't read anything into her lack of acknowledgment - Snape would never have done anything but glower - but the expected relief was strangely absent. As the meeting had dispersed, the Headmaster had made some comments about mandrakes and heralding spring and rebirth and renewal, which she suspected were for her benefit. She had tried to make the appropriate responses, but all she could feel was the sharp pang of approaching loss.

It wasn't that she had any desire to remain as Snape; she had no illusions about her ability to be the potions master on a long term basis. All it would take was another summons from Voldemort, or an incautious word and they would both be revealed. No, it was safer for all concerned if they resumed their proper identities as soon as possible. It was something more intangible than a simple matter of bodies; it was the loss of something unique, something that could only happen when the conditions were exactly right. And the more she chased the possibilities round her mind, the more she was being driven to the conclusion that once they regained their own bodies, the conditions would no longer be _exactly right_.

There were too many variables in this, too many elements of risk, too many vulnerabilities. They had been isolated within Hogwarts, trapped in a situation that only they could know about; could whatever they had survive the transition back to their usual lives? Hermione rubbed her temples, trying to ease the tension there. She looked around the rooms - her rooms, soon to be _his_ rooms - again. She took in the warmth, the unexpected clutter, the light, the feeling of safety and comfort that she had found there. Yes, she wanted to see her things again, to wear her own clothes, to cuddle Crookshanks and wake up in the night with him sleeping in the exact centre of her back, happily constricting her breathing, But she would miss this; not just the space and the library and the comparative luxury of a teacher's quarters, but the feeling of being surrounded by him.

She couldn't - _wouldn't_ deny the depth of what she was feeling; the passion, the connection, the hunger, the love that she felt for the complex and difficult man that was Snape.

All you need is love, she thought ironically, remembering a song that had been one of her parents' favourites. She closed her eyes and she could almost feel the record under her fingers; grooves etched into a seven inch pancake of black vinyl, stolen from the record cabinet and played over and over again on the stereo in her bedroom.

 _All you need is love. If only that were true._

In defiance of Hermione's determination to savour the last moments of this bizarre experience, the final days passed with almost unseemly haste. The Easter holidays were approaching and, in the way of teachers everywhere, this signalled a sudden increase in the study workload, to ensure that all essential areas of the syllabus were covered and that enough holiday homework was set to keep even the most industrious pupil occupied. Hermione was now used to the odd duality of dispensing work with one hand and receiving it with the other. However, even she noticed the upturn in the amount of essays, both outgoing and incoming.

The same evening that Professor Sprout had spoken of the mandrakes, Snape had arrived in the dungeons - late, as she had been at the staff meeting - and dumped a pile of parchment on one of the desks. Thinking that it was her homework, she had reached for it, only to have her hand brushed away gently but firmly by Snape.

"Draft examination papers," he had explained shortly, and then raised an eyebrow at her evident look of surprise. "Did you think that examinations wrote themselves? I have to prepare the papers and a scheme of marks." He bent and rummaged in his book bag. "This," he placed another sheaf of parchment on another desk, "is yours."

He had greeted the news of an impending cure with a lack of reaction that made her wonder if he were as ambivalent about it as her. He simply grunted an acknowledgement and moved over to the work area to examine the ongoing experiments. In some ways there was little point in carrying on with them, but she still wanted to know exactly what had been in that potion and she knew Snape well enough to be willing to bet that he felt the same way. A stir here and an adjustment of flame there and then he had silently returned to roughing out the second year potions exam. She might have thought that he was distant, until the time came for him to leave. Then, as she touched his lips goodnight, he reached up and buried a hand within her hair, pulling her close, kissing her with a fierce, brief hunger that left her gasping.

And then, one night when neither of them were expecting it, there was a knock at the dungeon door. Hermione looked up from her Transfiguration notes and was preparing to call a curt response, when the door opened and Professor Sprout poked her head around.

"Ah, there you are, Severus," she chirruped, as if he would have been anywhere else but here, working. The dumpy little witch eased herself into the room. Hermione could see that she was carrying a small rough canvas sack. "Oh .. and Miss Granger as well." The witch looked a little confused. "I didn't know that you worked down here too."

"Miss Granger is carrying out an extra-curricular potions project," Hermione interrupted repressively, hoping to discourage unwanted questions this close to getting away with it.

Professor Sprout blinked and then focussed back on Hermione.

"Yes, well," she said, frowning slightly, "the mandrakes are ready, and Albus said that you had urgent need of them for something, so I've brought you some down."

Hermione noticed that Snape, although he hadn't looked up from what he was doing, had gone very still.

"Thank you, Ermengarde," she said shortly, taking the sack from her. Much as she liked Professor Sprout under normal circumstances, she wanted the witch to go.

For her own part, Professor Sprout was clearly waiting, hoping to be told the exact purpose for which the roots were needed. Hermione had learned from her time as Snape; she waited Sprout out. Eventually, the Head of Hufflepuff seemed to get the message, for she made a noise in the back of her throat and swept out of the room, trailing wounded dignity.

Hermione watched her go, still holding the sack of mandrake roots. She gazed at the door to the room long after it had shut and all sounds of Professor Sprout had faded away. The silence was broken by Snape.

"I must remember the trick of keeping silent with Ermengarde. I'm usually reduced to insulting her house and accusing her of flower arranging to get her to leave."

Wordlessly, Hermione turned to Snape, profferring the bag. He took it from her.

"The Mandrake juice takes comparatively little time to prepare," he said distantly, and then looked at her. "If we begin now, it will be ready tonight. Unless for some reason you wish to wait?"

After all the time they had spent searching for a cure for their mutual condition, now that they had it in their hands Hermione felt oddly reluctant to say the words that would make it so, that would spell the end of this episode and send them back to their "normal" lives.

"It's not going to get any easier if we leave it," she said eventually. "We might as well do it now."

He nodded once, accepting her decision.

"Very well," he said simply. "Fetch me a size four silver cauldron."

Hermione obediently headed over to the stacked cauldrons; not the ones that the classes used, but Snape's own personal supply. Something else that, by tomorrow, would be back under his control. She selected the one that he wanted, the one that she always used when she needed a cauldron of that type. She took it over to him and noted that he was already preparing the mandrake root. Mature and cut, they still resembled ugly little humans, but without the squalling and the moving about they looked considerably more vegetal. Snape finished cleaning them off and then set a tall stand and clamp on the desk. He attached the roots to the clamps.

"Put the cauldron underneath," he instructed.

She did so. He adjusted the position fractionally, then selected a bone handled knife with a long silver blade. With one firm deep cut he sliced into the first mandrake root, along one of the many deep indentations. Hermione flinched very slightly, almost expecting blood. What came out was thick and green and began to drip and collect in the cauldron.

"Mandrake root is a plant" Snape said quietly. "The so called juice is a largely water based fluid secreted within the tubers. The fluid is drained out of the root and collected and used. It is a common process." He held the knife out to her. "I assume that you were watching me. Prepare the other root."

Knowing that it was irrational, Hermione took the knife rather tentatively. She grasped the second root as she had seen Snape do, eyed where she intended to make the cut, and drew the knife firmly along that line. The root presented more resistance than she was expecting; it was not unlike cutting into ginger. The comparison called her back to herself and she pressed with more force. The woody material parted and more green fluid began to fall into the cauldron. Silently, she watched her liberation pool and fill the shining silver container.

Once the roots had fully drained, Snape picked up the cauldron and placed it over a fire.

"It needs to be brought to the boil, then add a handful of chopped yarrow and a level teaspoon of powdered samphire. Allow it to simmer for thirty minutes, until the mixture has turned a rich crimson."

Which meant, she estimated that there were maybe thirty five minutes left of her existence as Snape.

They watched together as the green juice began to bubble, and as Snape added the final ingredients. The surface settled briefly, only disturbed by the tiny collections of froth round the rim, and then began to move and turn over on itself as the heat increased. A murmured word from Snape and the flames diminished under the cauldron. The liquid inside calmed and sank into the rhythmic movement of convection, hypnotic and oddly soothing. In the muted light of the dungeon, green turned to turquoise turned to purple turned to red turned to crimson. She was barely conscious of Snape murmuring something else beside her and the sudden cessation of heat that meant that the potion was ready.

"When it is cool enough, we will be able to drink it."

His voice sounded impersonal and detached. She looked at him and his face was equally blank. She knew him well enough now to know that he was concealing something.

"Severus?" she said uncertainly.

He didn't answer. What did you say to someone at a time like this? Perhaps nothing was best in the end. In silence they waited as the steam subsided and the metal of the cauldron became cool enough to touch comfortably. Without any further movement than to lift his wand, Snape muttered, " _Accio_ goblets." Two goblets lifted themselves from the shelves at the back of the room, flew through the air and landed on the bench in front of her. Snape carefully lifted the still warm cauldron back onto the workbench and ladled out the dark red liquid; too thick to be cranberry juice, too bright to be blood.

Snape picked up both goblets and handed one to Hermione. She took it, curiously nervous.

"You _are_ sure that this will work, aren't you?"

His glare seemed to lack conviction.

"I _am_ the Potions Master," he reminded her with a hint of irony.

On an impulse, she shifted the goblet to her other hand and reached out to entwine her fingers with his; for reassurance, although whether she was giving or seeking she couldn't tell. He didn't pull away from the contact, his grip tightening around hers.

Together, they lifted their cups and drank.


	12. Chapter 12

**The Fire and the Rose Part 38**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 38 - Please Fasten Your Seatbelts As We May Experience Some Turbulence_

Mandrake juice could never be described as pleasant tasting; perhaps the taste was associated with its function - Snape had never found a palatable variant on polyjuice either. Not one that actually worked.

The bitter taste stung its way down his throat, coating his tongue as he suppressed a retch. Memories flittered and escaped from reach in the few moments that it took for the liquid to work; re-learning transfiguration, leg-waxing, Cosmopolitan magazine, months of acting and months developing the most important relationship of his life. And the touch of her - of Hermione, no matter that she had been wearing his skin.

Had been; and was no longer. The odd wrenching, stretching, sensation that he could barely recall from late September was over. He could see the world once again from his usual elevation and, in front of him, stood Hermione. She looked somewhat bewildered, her eyes unfocussed for a moment. Then she looked up at him and he saw her - really saw her - behind her eyes, and saw Hermione once again, regardless of the skin she wore.

"Umm ..." she seemed unsure of what to say; he had absolutely no idea what to say. What was the correct protocol for this? He fell back on the tedious, stating the obvious, hoping it would at least begin to bring them out of this confusion.

"It seems to have worked."

Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him, suddenly looking slightly amused. If he could still blush, he thought perhaps he would have blushed now. It had been an appallingly obvious comment to make.

"Forgive me," he said, drawling with pleasure at the realisation that he _could_ drawl once more, with all the intonation and insinuation that had been his to call upon before. "You must, however, allow me some moment of inanity, surely. This is not _quite_ an everyday occurrence, Hermione."

He had, for a fraction of a second, debated calling her 'Miss Granger' but, in the end, could not bring himself to shut down the connection between them so peremptorily. Hermione herself took a deep breath, almost of relief, at the mention of her name; he thought perhaps she had been expecting the formality, the immediate dissolution of all that had happened in the previous six months.

"No," she replied eventually. "You're forgiven, Severus. This time." He fought the smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth, then gave in to it. It had been too long since he had smiled - with this mouth - and he was reasonably certain that there was no-one else he would be prepared to smile for. Freedom of expression, one extent or another, had been one of the unexpected delights of being Hermione. If - perhaps - if he could find some way to hold on to that, even with just the one person ... probably a foolish dream, and far too risky.

Hermione smiled back at him. His own smile turned wry as practicalities fought their way to the surface at last.

"We should go and see the Headmaster," he said; she nodded in agreement and he turned on his heel to lead the way to the door. He smiled again, inwardly this time, at the simple pleasure of feeling his robes swirl around him at the abrupt turn. Halfway to the door he stopped suddenly, remembering, and gestured to Hermione to precede him. "My apologies, Hermione," he said, "I have mislaid my manners."

"It'll take a while to remember which set of manners to use, and when," replied Hermione. "You're lucky I didn't walk into you - I've grown used to leading the way in front of students."

The walk through the corridors was largely uneventful; Snape tried not to look too obviously around him as they went, re-learning the castle from his higher vantage and perspective. Students scattered from his path again, casting sympathetic glances at the Head Girl beside him. An hour ago, they had been casting those glances at him. He wondered what Hermione was thinking, being on the receiving end of the same glances once more. They arrived at the Headmasters's office before he had a moment, away from students, to ask her.

Dumbledore was in and, apparently, expecting them. "Hermione, Severus. How good to see you both again - and the right way round! Excellent, excellent. I should congratulate you both; the last few months cannot have been easy for either of you, and you are to be commended on your acting abilities - and your patience. Lemon drop?"

Snape shook his head and noticed Hermione do the same next to him.

"Ah well. Very good. Do you need any assistance from me? No?" Dumbledore seemed almost disappointed as they shook their heads again. "Well then, children, I think perhaps all that remains is for you to pick up your lives again - but please," and his voice grew softer for a moment, "do not forget, and do not ignore the possibilities. Not everything is impossible - although caution is always wise." He nodded to them. "Goodnight."

Snape blinked at the dismissal; neither he nor Hermione had managed to say a word in the face of the Headmaster's benediction, yet they found themselves ushered down the spiralling staircase again within moments.

At the foot of the stairs they stood for a moment, shielded from the view of any passers-by, and looked at each other blankly.

Finally, Hermione dropped her gaze to the floor, then looked up again. "I suppose I should go and re-acquaint myself with my room and my cat. Is there ... is there anything you need from there?" she asked.

Snape shook his head. "I've kept everything in the lab; I don't think there's anything up there that isn't yours. If you find anything, you can bring it with you tomorrow evening when you - when you come to work on your credit project." He almost winced at the slight break in his words, hoping he didn't sound as desperate for her company as he was trying not to feel.

Hermione blinked, her eyes oddly bright for a moment, then nodded and, suddenly, reached up to tuck her hand behind his neck. Before he had a chance to react, she had raised up to meet his mouth with her own; a rush of sensation tore through him, the taste and touch her immediately firing a thousand-fold through him.

 _This_ was right - the right taste, the right touch, and the right person. He fought not to deepen the kiss - the corridor outside the Headmaster's office was hardly appropriate - but could not help but respond. His hand curled into her hair, silky under his fingers. Some rebellious part of his mind noted that the conditioner he had come up with really did work well. He drew her closer to him, revelling in the sensation as she pressed again him. Her mouth was cool and infinitely sweet under his own; pleasure in everything, even the simplicity of being taller, leaning over her - leaning into the kiss.

Moments later they parted, breathing a little heavily. Snape forced himself to say goodbye, but found he could only manage another two words.

"Until tomorrow."

Hermione nodded, her eyes bright again, and turned to walk briskly along the corridor. Snape watched her go, suddenly very tired, and almost missed the point at which she broke into a run. Six months ago, he would have thought she was anxious to get away from him, to return to Gryffindor Tower and the sanctuary of Potter and Weasley. Now ... now he was sure that she was running to the sanctuary of her room, alone, before anyone saw her cry.

He should do the same. He would do the same, if it would not raise questions that he was unprepared to answer. Even Hermione could get away with such a dash through the corridors - no matter that she was Head Girl, it wouldn't be seen as unusual. Professor Snape, however, could not indulge in such things, so he walked slowly back, scowling at any students fool enough to encounter him, and deducting points peremptorily - even from a Slytherin student stupid enough to stop him in the corridor and ask some trivial question.

He reached his rooms; the door swung open to let him through at his password. He stalked across the room and collapsed into a chair, staring at the wall in front of him. The titles of books marched across the shelves in serried ranks and he abruptly remembered Hermione staring at them in ill-concealed wonder and glee when she first saw the rooms.

He raised his head and looked around; it was his domain and yet ... and yet it was indelibly stamped now with Hermione. Her touch on the scrolls on the desk - her notes, no doubt, from the project. He would need to make sure she had access to them. The cold cup of coffee on the floor beside the chair; hers, from breakfast, no doubt. The books stacked beside the cup - he should remember to offer them to her, for her to continue reading them.

His room - her room - their room. It would take time to adjust, to remember ... and suddenly he did remember, pulling up the sleeve of his left arm. The mark was barely visible still but he felt it now, in memory, recalling what he didn't want to recall. Realising, emphatically, who and what he was. What he had always been, even through the short months inhabiting Hermione's body.

He slumped back into the chair.

Finally, lost in circular thoughts and almost fiercely tired and distracted, he headed for bed. It was late - or possibly even early, since he was sure it was long past midnight - and he should try to sleep. He wondered, for a moment, whether he could sleep; habit, though, persisted in the mind and not the body - he wanted to go to bed, as he had done every night since September. If he could take nothing else away from this, perhaps he could finally regulate his sleep.

He turned back the sheets and started, then laughed. And laughed, a low rusty sound that mingled with dry sobs. Tucked carefully under the sheets was a pair of boxer shorts; a forceful reminder that Hermione had slept in this bed only last night. He stopped the tears and the laughter, calming down but allowing wry amusement to linger. Obviously, some intimacies were just a little too much to tolerate.

He was tired. So damn tired. Memory and recollection jumbled as he fought to retain memories in the face of needing to be himself once more - and yet, not himself. Somewhere in the time since September he had found, perhaps, something of the man he might have been. It was a measure of the irony that governed the universe that he had found it in the life and body of an eighteen year old girl. Time enough to think about it tomorrow, to find once again some equilibrium in the balancing act of his life.

He swept up the boxers in one hand and almost tossed them to one side then, on an impulse he couldn't explain, laid them back on the bed. He stripped himself of his clothes; the black suit and robes, the shirt and underwear, and then stepped into the boxers.

Lying on the bed he stared at the ceiling, the light of the candle by the bed playing across the rough plasterwork that concealed the stone of the school. It felt ... odd, to be lying in this bed, alone, in this body. The boxer shorts felt particularly odd, the material slightly rough. Almost like a caress.

Images follow words, and actions may follow both. Snape reached down to take off the shorts, to revert to the comfort of nudity, but stopped as he touched the waistband. He couldn't do it. Hermione had done this; had worn shorts in his bed.

A circle of illogic swirled until he was almost dizzy then, finally, he simply undid the single button and left it at that. The art of compromise. Memory, remembrance, and comfort.

Unexpectedly, he fell asleep just as he was wondering how long he would lie awake.

Snape woke to the early morning light of dawn, teasing the room with a pale rose sunlight tinting and reflecting from the snow that lingered on the mountains that fringed the horizon.

Some things never changed; the need to head for the bathroom and relieve an uncomfortable pressure was one of them. But even this had changed - memories overlaid the brute practicality and he found himself remembering how this had felt when it had been Hermione he had been touching, stroking. The pressure on the groove on the underside - the sharp, almost overwhelming sensation of a fingernail run across the opening. A ring of pressure as his fingers stroked ... he came hard, Hermione's name spilling into the cold dawn air.


	13. Chapter 13

**The Fire and the Rose Part 39**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

 _This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 39 - Will The Real Hermione Granger Please Step Forward?_

Hermione just managed to prevent her dash through the corridors of the school from turning into headlong flight. At least, that's what she told herself. Anyone seeing her _could_ imagine that the Head Girl had simply forgotten an important meeting, or an essay that needed another few inches adding to it before the morning. They wouldn't necessarily know that her world had been turned inside out - in an unusually literal sense - once again. She hurried on, clinging to her internal litany for dear life: _I will get back to my rooms; they will not see me cry._

 _He will not see me cry_.

The castle seemed to be with her; the staircases co-operated and she managed to make it back to her rooms without encountering anyone who might have a reason to actually stop her, rather than just give her a curious look. She disarmed the wards and let the door slam shut behind her. Breathing heavily she leant back against it, eyes closed, just for the moment allowing herself to be supported by its comforting solidity. And only then did she allow herself to think of what she had done in the corridor outside the Headmaster's study.

She had kissed Professor Snape.

This time there was no confusion about identites; no ambiguity about exactly who it was she was kissing. This was her, mind and body, and she had kissed _him_ ; also mind and body.

 _She had kissed Professor Snape._

And it had been so sweet and so right and she had wanted the moment never to end. She had wanted to share something; to validate the memories, the feelings, the passion. She had wanted to touch him and reassure him and thank him. She had wanted to know his taste; to feel him from the outside, to reach up into him. She had wanted so many things.

She had kissed Professor Snape.

No, she thought, she had kissed _Severus_. The man, not the master.

It had felt like flying.

It had felt like farewell.

And now she was back in her rooms - _her life_ \- again. She opened her eyes. If ever there was a moment that she deserved a bout of tears this was it; her throat was tight and aching but, oddly, the tears wouldn't come. She looked around, imagining Snape here, moving around, using her things. She detached herself from the door, fighting the feeling that it was the only thing holding her up, and slowly took a few steps into the room, re-learning her own environment. She carefully made her way to her desk, casting her eye over the neatly stacked scrolls and books. Her coloured timetable hadn't been moved and she noted that he had kept to her rather idiosyncratic filing system. After all these months it should have come as no surprise to her that he had been able to comprehend the way in which she organised her thoughts, but the awareness of shared understanding sent a pang through her and brought again the feeling of something lost. There was a dull patch on the desk where the arms of countless Head Girls had rested as they worked. She absently touched it; not even the best efforts of the house elves had succeeded in restoring the shine. She imagined Snape sitting here, reading over the day's lessons and notes; never mind that in all probability he had done no such thing - most of his work - their work - had been done together in the dungeons. To visualise him in her surroundings made her feel a little less alone.

Leaving the desk she stepped over to the bed. The orange puddle of fur that was Crookshanks opened a sleepy eye and gazed at her, appearing to be singularly unmoved by the return of his mistress in her proper form. Evidently, he and Snape had reached an accommodation during their enforced intimacy, she thought wryly; _like mistress, like familiar_. Having apparently satisfied himself as to her identity, Crookshanks got up and stretched himself thoroughly. He presented his head for the expected scratch and then walked around on the spot a few times before settling down into a position that was indistinguishable from his previous one. He closed his eyes and, to all outward appearances, went back to sleep.

Still, her eyes were dry.

"Fair enough," she said resignedly. It looked like she was going to be denied the indulgence of a good cry. She sighed. And when lost for something to do ...

She went back over to her bookcase, now looking rather thin and empty compared with the abundant luxury of Snape's. Another pang shot through her, not simply for the books, but for the loss of someone to discuss them with; her conversational partners were back to Harry and Ron and Lavender and Parvati. She tried to feel happy that she would be able to talk with her friends again, but could only wonder if Snape would still let her use his books if she asked him. Skimming the - to her eyes - meagre selection, she spotted one that she had been intending to start, just before all this had happened.

Without thinking, she reached up to take it off the top shelf and blinked as her hand stopped several inches short of the spine. Snape was tall enough to reach the book without standing on a chair; Hermione was not and never had been. That realisation, that simple practical reinforcement of her altered position froze her as abruptly as the reverse had in her first days as Snape.

Memory and longing and loss flooded in on her and finally the tears began to fall.

In the end, Hermione slept better than she had been expecting. Her emotional outburst the night before - intense and prolonged when it finally came - had released much of the tension and fear that had built up over the recent past. She had fallen into a heavy sleep and woken with a fuzzy head and a lingering melancholy and a faint sense of relief that today was a school day, which would give her things to do to stop her dwelling on her current situation. It wasn't until she rolled over that it suddenly occurred to her that she was only wearing her knickers. Months of sleeping as Snape had led her to simply strip off her robes and crawl into bed, and exhaustion had sent her to sleep almost immediately, without registering her near-naked state. Lying there, she realised that she felt no pressing desire to locate her nightdress.

Habit pulled her out of bed and towards the shower; smaller than Snape's, but also stocked with a considerably wider selection of cosemtics and other preparations. One thing that she would definitely _not_ miss was having to wash in household soap. She was also still half-naked - she hadn't felt the need to find her dressing gown either; one of things she appeared to have gained from this experience was a new comfort with her own body. And considering what she had actually _done_ with her own body ... Not to mention Snape's. She grinned as she stripped off her knickers and stepped into the shower.

Hogwarts' hot water system was as reliable as ever. She tilted her head back and let the water hit her forehead, streaming through her hair, running down the small of her back and over her buttocks, channelling into the cleft and trickling down the backs of her legs. She reached out with one hand and picked one of the plain glass bottles nestling in the small recess set into the wall. Remembering Snape's slightly embarrassed confession about his little sideline, she pulled the stopper out and sniffed curiously. A tang of herbs hit her nostrils; rosemary and thyme, she thought, and maybe something else that she couldn't quite identify. It smelt good. She poured a generous dollop onto her hand and, replacing the bottle in the recess, began to massage it into her hair. As she worked, the hot water released the oils, surrounding her with a fragrant steam that was herbal without being medicinal and which somehow managed to clear and freshen her mind. She stood with her eyes closed for a few minutes, just letting the water rinse away the last of the mixture, revelling the fact that - with the exception of the few surreptitious hair washes that she sneaked in over Christmas - this was the first time since September that she had been able to use real, genuine, actual shampoo on her hair.

Even that experience was now overlain with thoughts of Snape.

With some anticipation, she selected what appeared to be conditioner - _who could have predicted that he would think of conditioner as well?_ This was paler in colour and when she opened it the familiar scent of rosemary was overlain by the floral notes of lavender and exotic threads of cedar and coconut. Again, she poured some into her hands and then rubbed them together. She began to run her hands through her hair, automatically teasing at the tangles with her fingers; experience had taught her that this was the only way that she would ever get a brush through her hair later. Except that this time the knots seemed to melt away leaving her hair to fall heavily across her shoulders. Wonderingly, she worked the conditioner in and then twisted her hair up onto her head, out of the way.

With considerable enthusiasm she picked up the soap and sniffed at it. She was met with an aroma of honey, with light overtones of almond; simple and sensuous; more so even than the conditioner. When applied to her body it produced a rich, creamy lather, sweetly scented but not cloying. She ran her hands over her arms, feeling her own skin for the first time since - well, that night with him. She closed her eyes again, imagining him, here every morning, running his hands over her skin, except that he wasn't her, he was him and he was touching her, smoothing honey over her, oil over her, himself over her. Her hands followed the path of her imagination, over the tops of her arms, over her breasts, around her nipples, circling her stomach, her buttocks, the inside of her thighs, higher and closer to the small hot point between her legs. _Did it feel different, that centre of her?_ Her fingers moved higher, brushing the sensitive skin, grazing her folds, exploring, probing. And it was the same; it was not her body that had changed but herself. She reached out with one hand to support herself on the wall as she continued to stroke, with the water falling on her back and curtaining to the floor and her mind and heart and senses full of the aromas that he had brought to her body and to her life. Breathing his name like a forbidden thought, she clenched and released and almost convinced herself that the water on her face was simply from the shower spray.

Eventually, she sat in front of her mirror, last of the conditioner rinsed out of her hair, a fine layer of moisturiser - another delicate Snape creation of mallow and rose - applied to her face and her hair tamed and neatly pulled back into a clip. The conditioner had been as effective as promised, her hair was gleaming and soft and tangle-free for perhaps the first time in eighteen years. There was a certain irony that it had taken Snape to achieve it. She smiled faintly.

 _Yes, that was it. Concentrate on the irony, the wry humour of the situation, the imagined looks on the faces of friends and staff if they knew who they had been speaking to for the last six months. Build the defences carefully and firmly. No one must suspect anything, for the situation is almost as dangerous now as it was before._

The latter thought came half-unawares; insidiously filtering through her mind, telling her that the danger had not yet passed; that if Voldemort came into possession of the information he could still inflict untold damage on the cause of The Light. Not to mention upon Snape himself.

It made her uncomfortable and it didn't chime with her current aim of ironic detachement with a shot of wry humour. It was something that she probably needed to speak to Snape about, she thought. Later.

At the moment the best cure for early morning introspection seemed like food; after all it couldn't be that hard to pick up where she left off. It _was_ her life after all; it was not as though she was pretending to be someone else any more.

Unfortunately, Hermione found that settling back into her life was considerably more difficult that she had anticipated. Even simple things like breakfast required more concentration that she was expecting. Never one for early morning conversation - in either incarnation - her silence had gone unremarked by Harry and Ron, who just carried on around her. This had, in fact, turned out to be rather fortunate as she had absently reached to take a slice of bacon from the loaded platter. However, with no expectation that she would be remotely interested in it - wasn't she supposed to be a vegetarian? - Ron had simply leant straight across her to take it from Harry. Hermione had retained enough presence of mind to abort the gesture and to redirect it towards the pumpkin juice and pour herself a glass.

And that was another thing; pumpkin juice. Her first taste of it in six months - Snape had been quite clear about his preferences in that direction - and in those six months she had become accustomed to a good cup of strong coffee in the morning. She sipped her milky tea, trying to pretend that it was Snape's hot syrupy espresso and reminding herself to pay attention.

At first her classes gave her little difficulty. Snape's presentation of her had obviously been sufficiently convincing to forestall any comments from the staff. His notes had kept her up to date with the work and Arithmancy passed without any incidents beyond the usual muttered queries from Neville, _sotto voce_ asides from Harry and elaborate grimaces from Ron. Herbology was equally uneventful and, despite some regret that she was no longer able to tell her classmates to pay attention, keep quiet and stop messing about - and enforce it - by the time the bell sounded for the end of morning lessons, Hermione thought she could begin to relax.

She seated herself next to Harry at the Gryffindor table and remembered to take a good helping of vegetable stew although she still regretted the absence of coffee. She was expecting Ron or Neville to take the place on the other side, but instead the odour of food was temporarily banished by a cloud of something that spoke strongly of too much Patchouli.

"Hi, Hermione," said Lavender breathlessly. "Have you got a minute?"

Hermione had just taken a mouthful of stew, and having been brought up by Mr and Mrs Granger not to talk with her mouth full, had no time to come up with a reply before Lavender hurried on.

"It's just that I've run out of that cleanser that you make and I really want to take some home at Easter and I wondered when you'd have another batch ready? Oh, and Parvati wants some of her shampoo as well."

By now, Hermione had managed to swallow.

"Um," she said non-committally, not entirely sure how enthusiastic Snape would be about letting her continue to make the cosmetics once he had his workspace back; she didn't even contemplate that he might care to do it himself. "I'm not sure. Can I let you know?"

"Yeah, but can you do it really soon. I know the other girls want some things and I said I'd tell them what you said."

"The other girls?" she asked, feeling stupid. _How many of them were there?_

"You know - Susan, Hannah, Sally-Anne, Mandy, Morag - _everyone_. And of course Pansy and Millicent and the Slytherin crowd who don't really want to be seen talking to you." Lavender looked puzzled. "Are you all right, Hermione? You don't really seem like yourself today."

Hermione swallowed again, this time to suppress the ball of hysterical laughter that threatened to emerge at the question.

"I'm fine," she managed. "Just thinking about Transfiguration this afternoon."

Obviously Snape had maintained the "academic preoccupation" aspect of her character. Lavender nodded mournfully and launched into a lament about the impossibility of transfiguring a raven into a writing desk. Hermione finished her lunch, only half-listening to Lavender's voice, and preventing herself from glancing at the staff table in search of Snape. She was looking forward to the afternoon; Transfiguration had been one of her best classes and after her coaching she was confident that Snape had not had too great an impact on her marks. She munched idly on an apple; the return to her own metabolism meant that she had to be more cautious about what she ate. Snape could apparently eat anything and stay whipcord thin; she was not so lucky.

"So you'll get the stuff to us soon?" Lavender's voice broke in on her thoughts. She blinked. Lavender had abandoned Transfiguration and returned to the safer topic of personal grooming.

"Yes. Yes, I will," she confirmed.

"Brilliant." There was a pause. "Oh, and Parvati and I were thinking of doing another girls' night." She shrugged. "You interested?"

Hermione nearly choked again and was on the point of saying no, when it suddenly occurred to her that Snape had actually gone to one of these. Which presumably meant that she ...

"Um, yes. That would be great," she said. "Let me know when it is."

Lavender nodded happily and shot off.

Great, thought Hermione. Before, I was just pretending to be Snape. _Now_ , I'm pretending to be Snape pretending to be me. _Will the real Hermione Granger please stand up?_

As it happened, she had to stand up, real or otherwise, unless she wanted to be late for class. Harry next to her was deep in conversation with Seamus. She tuned into the conversation long enough to hear the words "offside rule" and tuned out again.

"I'm going up to my room to get my stuff for this afternoon," she said to Harry, who grunted an acknowledgement without turning round; little short of a direct attack from an enraged rabid wyvern could distract Harry from a _serious_ conversation about Quidditch. Hermione felt oddly warmed the familiarity of the scene; it actually made her feel more at home than anything else. Snape would laugh at that, she thought as she adjusted her wand in her sleeve. And froze.

Her wand. Or more to the point _his_ wand.

They hadn't thought to exchange wands the night before and she strongly doubted that a helpful house-elf had done the job whilst she slept. Carefully, she released the wand enough for her to be able to touch it. The heavier weight and the slightly sluggish feel told her that she still had Snape's wand. She knew that she was able to perform transfigurations with his wand, but she was nowhere near as confident as she was with her own, and besides, for all she knew, he needed his wand. She rather guiltily recalled that his cut-throat razor was now an attractive safety one. There was no help for it; she looked at the staff table to see Snape rise and head out of the Hall. Taking a deep breath she moved to intercept him. He was striding purposefully away from her, robes sweeping behind him, attention wholly focussed elsewhere. The distance between them was increasing and, unless she wanted to run after him, she was going to have to shout.

"Professor Snape!"

He paused but did not turn. It gave her a chance to catch up with him.

"Professor Snape," she repeated in a quieter voice. "Can I speak with you?"

He arched a disdainful eyebrow.

"You appear to be able to do so quite adequately. Is that your only question, or do you have _another_ reason for bellowing down the corridor like a wounded troll?"

Hermione bit back the response that sprang to mind, and simply said: "Wands, sir."

"Wands, Miss Granger?"

He obviously hadn't had the need to use his wand that morning.

"You have my wand," she clarified and was gratified to see consternation flicker across his face for a moment.

"Follow me," he said curtly.

He led her into a quiet corridor and then proffered his - her - wand to her.

"As you cast the spells," he said quietly, his voice lacking the bite that it had in the more public arena of the corridor.

Taking her own wand back, she quickly reversed the charms and handed him his wand. He inclined his head briefly in acknowledgement.

"Thank you, Miss Granger." He turned to leave and then paused briefly. "Oh, and Miss Granger - five points from Gryffindor for shrieking like a banshee."

 _Bastard_ , she thought affectionately, as she watched his figure retreat.

Evening found her making her way down to the dungeons with something that felt a lot like relief. The effort of playing the role of Severus Snape was apparently nothing compared to the effort of playing the role of Hermione Granger. Ease and relaxation had not turned out to be part of the game plan. Her back ached with the effort of carrying books around, her temper was ragged from the frustrated desire to deduct large numbers of house points and assign detentions and her head ached abominably. She was going to have to get some of Snape's willowbark and valerian infusion before she could make any sensible contribution to the night's work.

She reached the familiar doors and had said the password and entered before she realised that her resumed role meant that she should have knocked first. Oh well, Snape had hardly ever bothered to knock either.

Snape was sitting at his desk, eyebrow raised at her entrance.

"Do come in, Miss Granger," he said with a hint of irony.

She muttered an apology and dumped her bag on the floor. She headed towards the store cupboard, intent on finding some pain relief.

"I've got a dreadful headache," she explained, searching the shelves, "and I really need ..."

"... this?" he finished for her.

She jumped. He had managed to leave his desk and come up behind her without making a sound. She turned to face him and saw that he was offering her a steaming mug of coffee. The smell wrapped itself around her frayed nerve endings promising peace, joy and happiness. Gratefully, she took it and sipped. The taste curled through her, infusing her cells with a sense of deep well-being that coalesced to a point of bliss somewhere near the base of her skull. She closed her eyes and sank into a chair.

"Of course," remarked Snape, in his best professorial tone, "the effect is purely psychological."

She opened one eye to glare.

"It doesn't feel like a _psychological_ headache to me," she said.

"The headache is probably mainly due to tension, but I anticipate that you will have had no coffee today. Although your body has never become accustomed to caffeine itself, your experience in my body has trained your mind to expect ill-effects from deprivation and to believe that those ill-effects will be alleviated by further consumption. Hence the fact that a cup of coffee has cured your headache."

"You mean I've inherited your coffee addiction?"

His mouth twitched into a half-smile.

"So it would seem, Hermione."

The coffee, the smile, her name; they all made her profoundly grateful to be there. To be somewhere where she could be herself. She was silent, cradling her mug and staring into the depths like Trelawney seeking a vision.

"It was harder than I thought," she said after a while. Snape had settled himself back behind his desk. He didn't say anything but she knew that he was listening. "I thought it would be easy, going back to being me. After all, that's what I've been doing for the last eighteen years or so - being me. Except that it still felt like I was pretending. Like I was acting the part of Hermione Granger. I couldn't really say what I thought or do what I wanted to do because that wasn't what Hermione Granger would do." She struggled to put words to the thoughts. "I had to think 'what would Hermione do' in the same way that I had to think 'what would Professor Snape do'. I couldn't think what _I_ would do."

Snape was quiet for so long that she thought he had gone back to marking essays, but then he spoke.

"We all of us act in some way, Hermione. I do. You do, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Mr Malfoy, even Mr Longbottom. None of us are entirely what we show the world. The key is to know that; to know that we are more than the reflections of the beliefs of others.

Hermione looked at him; his face was shadowed in the lights of the dungeon, but the intensity was tangible.

"That's a lovely sentiment," she said quietly.

"It is," he agreed. "I read it somewhere and I've been waiting for the chance to use it in conversation ever since."

His voice was deadpan and the moment of tension was gone. She laughed softly, sensing that now was not the moment to pursue the line of thought.

"Fair enough," she said, matching his tone. "I'll stop worrying about the existentialist implications of it all and just get on with it."

"A commendable decision," he noted dryly and then added "if it makes you feel any better, today has not been without its - moments of interest - for me. And I have been accustomed to playing the role of _Professor Snape_ for a very long time."

As the evening drew on, they resumed their old tasks and experiments, slipping into familiar patterns, reactions and responses conditioned by the person not the physical appearence. But as they worked, Hermione played over in her head his comment to her and wondered if he realised exactly how much he had told her. And exactly how much she still didn't know.


	14. Chapter 14

**The Fire and the Rose Part 40**

 _Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre

 _Part 40 - Costing Not Less Than Everything_

 _We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time._

And so it was that the Easter term of Hermione Granger's last year at Hogwarts came to an end. The last week had been taken up with the usual panicked rush of essays, revision timetables, exam question spotting and reassurances of mutual success or failure, depending on the company. Not to mention the batches of cleansers and shampoo that were needed to meet the persistent stream of orders that arrived at her via the twin methods of owl- and Lavender-post. The net effect of this was that her initial disorientation at finding herself - well, _herself_ \- again was quickly dispelled by the sheer need to deal with the practicalities.

Eventually, the last pieces of holiday homework were handed out, the last trunks were packed, the last orders of conditioner and moisturisers delivered. The Hogwarts Express had left Hogsmeade station, heading southwards towards King's Cross, taking both the concerned and the confident back to their families and their holiday plans. In this case the concerned and the confident also included Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, who, together with Ginny, were heading back to The Burrow to "revise together", which would undoubtedly include large amounts of therapeutic Quidditch practice and Mrs Weasley's cooking. She had been invited to join them, but she had refused and been grateful when they hadn't pressed the point. She didn't feel up to dealing with the chaos of the Weasley household; if she wanted chaos, there was enough chaos going on in her own mind at the moment. And if she was feeling reluctant to be too far away from the primary source of that chaos, that was surely understandable.

The trivia of the end of term had not only forced back into her life as Hermione, it had also effectively presented her with the perfect excuse not to confront the single most pressing issue in her life - Snape. They had seen each other over the last week - of course they had. There had been potions classes and there had been the evenings where the experiments and the talks had continued. But as the days had passed and the familiar roles took over once more she found their rapport was ... not exactly strained ... but there was something. As she became the student, and he the teacher, something had gradually come between them. Something unspoken. And that something needed to be sorted out, she thought.

She lay on her bed, looking up at the ceiling with one hand buried in Crookshanks' fur, idly petting him. Her last potions class had been ... well, strange. Oh, he had still taken points from her when he caught her preventing Neville from destroying yet more of his cauldron stock, but it had been almost perfunctory. He had used none of his presence or his devastating eye-contact to drive the point home. It wasn't anything that the boys would notice; the complaints from Harry and Ron were the same as ever. But _she_ had noticed it; noticed the change and wondered at it.

She sighed and moved her hand from cat's stomach to cat's ears. Laying the elements of the situation out in her mind again, she began to play over the same scenarios that she had been deconstructing for the whole of the afternoon. _Snape, Voldemort, Hogwarts, light, dark, Snape_. She closed her eyes; thus far the ceiling had been utterly unhelpful in offering alternative solutions.

Which was probably because there _were_ no alternative solutions, she thought miserably.

She needed to talk to Snape.

Which, in itself, was unlikely to be a problem. There were no classes which meant that he would be in his classroom, his office or his rooms. All of which were open to her; distant or not, he had certainly not given her to believe that she would be unwelcome. Whether or not that would change after her visit was a moot point. She had less idea of what _his_ expectations of all this were than her own.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself off the bed. This wasn't going to improve by keeping. Grabbing her sweater, she made her way down to the dungeons. The classroom was empty when she opened the door; he hadn't told her that she was free to go in at any time, he just hadn't changed the wards. It was a very _Snape_ was of conveying information, she thought. Closing and re-warding the door, she made her way to his office. Her soft knock at the door was answered by a brusque "Come in." Entering, she saw him sitting in on of the comfortable chairs, obviously reading a journal of some description. As she closed the door behind her, he laid it down beside the chair.

"Hermione," he said neutrally, "what can I do for you?"

She knew that he hadn't been expecting her. He didn't get up or move towards her in any way, but the tension in his body was palpable and his expression was wary. She knew what she wanted to say, but now that she was here, she wasn't at all certain how to begin. She bit her lip, searching for the words. Despite his watchfulness, a small smile touched his mouth.

"Why don't you just say it?" he suggested dryly, "and then afterwards we can pretend that it was tactful."

That made her smile in response, but only briefly.

 _Well, here goes ..._

"We can't do this," she stated bluntly.

He didn't answer, just folded his hands in his lap, as if he was waiting for her to go on.

She swallowed and made a vague gesture at him and the room.

"This. Us. We can't do it, can we? Not because you're my teacher because you won't always be and not because you're older because I don't care about that. But it's too dangerous. If Voldemort found out he could tell people that you were having an affair with a student and then the Headmaster would have to fire you and that would make him look bad because he knew about it and let it go on. Or it would make him look bad because he didn't know about it and should have. And you couldn't continue to be a spy and we need that information and the Headmaster might have to resign and Hogwarts needs him." She knew she was beginning to ramble but she needed to get out everything at once. "Or Voldemort could hurt you, or even kill you, like that man, Rudd. And ...," she hesitated and then took a deep breath - if anything at all was to be said this was her only chance - "... I care about you far too much to put you at that sort of risk."

She waited for his response, wanting him to deny her words, to tell her that she was being foolish and that of course there was a way through this, one that she hadn't thought of. Snape studied his hands for a moment, then looked at her.

"I confess that I have been trying to think of a way to express those thoughts to you for several days. I should have known better than to underestimate you. Please accept my apologies."

That calm acceptance silenced her, even as the last shreds of irrational hope died. And the finality of it was almost a release, bringing in its wake a new and welcome calm. She nodded slowly, mind gradually clearing. Snape was still speaking, still looking at her.

"However, I believe that you omitted one consideration from your reasoning. Whilst it is true that Voldemort could use the knowledge of any association between us to compel or injure me, it would place you at an equal if not greater risk." He went back to examining his hands. "And I also care far too much about you to place you in that kind of danger."

 _Through the unknown, remembered gate when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning; at the source of the longest river the voice of the hidden waterfall and the children in the apple-tree not known, because not looked for but heard, half-heard in the stillness between two waves of the sea._

The words were spoken, at last. The dance had been thorough, protracted, had taken time to develop momentum and then had almost stopped inelegantly, without resolution. Here, then, was that resolution.

He noted idly that Hermione had taken a deep breath at his words, and he could almost see the thought processes; the rapid spin through the possible interpretations, the doubt as to whether to take the interpretation that she wanted to take and - after a moment more silence - the resolute determination to take the leap of faith and accept her hopes. He had done the same at her words, after all. Fear of the unknown was less terrifying than fear of destroying the known but, when the known is not an option, there had seemed little to lose.

He nodded, once, when Hermione looked quickly at him as though to confirm her leap of faith - he had no desire to spin out that particular doubt, there was nothing to be gained by it. Intellectually, he was curious as to her reaction. The rest of him refused to think about it, which of course meant that he did nothing else.

It seemed the longest of moments, silence drawn between them and a sudden tension arcing in the air.

"I ... I think I needed to know that," said Hermione at last, her voice a near whisper between them. Snape let out a breath he hadn't been aware that he'd held, and stood, reaching a hand out to her.

"We both needed to know that," he said as she took his hand. "This may have all the elements of melodrama and Shakespearean tragedy but there is no point in allowing ourselves to assemble the misunderstandings in the traditional way. There will be plenty of time for misunderstandings in the future; we can at least close this particular scene with some clarity."

He held her closely now; as he spoke, he had pulled Hermione towards him and tucked her against him as they stood in the centre of his office. This, at least, would not be denied - none of it was denied, after all. It was merely impossible.

He felt Hermione shiver against him suddenly, and tucked a hand under her chin to lift her face; she wasn't crying, to his relief. He raised an eyebrow, and watched her smile.

"I wish I could still do that ..." she said quietly. "It's very effective."

"Not as effective as it used to be, clearly," replied Snape wryly.

Hermione laughed, the sound a little rusty. "Oh God ... I'm going miss you."

"And I you," he said, simply. Silence and tension again, but this time she was close enough that he could do something about it. He bent slightly and found her mouth with his; she had reached up at the same time. He would miss her; would miss this closeness and understanding - of self and other.

The rooms were cold but, for a while, Snape didn't notice. His arms around Hermione, he noticed nothing other than the taste and warmth of her mouth, her lips moving against his and the parry of exploration. One hand wrapped in her hair, the other exploring the soft skin of her back under her sweater and his awareness centred on the quiet sounds and moans between them.

He broke the kiss reluctantly as Hermione shivered again; he felt goosebumps on her back under his fingers and realised that, with the stove unlit, the room was chilly. That was, usually, conducive to clear thought but right now he wanted to be somewhere warmer. Somewhere warmer with Hermione.

Resting his forehead against hers, he waited until she opened her eyes.

"This will almost certainly make things more difficult ... but would you come with me to my rooms?"

If she had any sense, she would take this opportunity and leave; he could not make her do so, and would not make her do so. Happily ever after was not in the immediate future for either of them but he found that he needed this ... this farewell to hope. He could live without it but couldn't make the choice alone.

"Yes."

The definite reply reassured him; she would not take this route blindly but if she was willing to take the leap of faith then they would take it together.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and slipped his hand from under her sweater, resting it against the small of her back as they separated slightly. A couple of steps brought them to the door to his rooms; Hermione spoke the passwords to gain entry before he could. A small gesture - perhaps not even planned, habit was a hard thing to break - but it reassured him more than her simple reply had done. She knew what she was doing - what they were doing.

Silence again, punctuated by the rustling of clothes as they slowly undressed each other in the candelit late afternoon. Snape struggled to maintain a slow pace, not wanting to hurry but pulled on by the touch of her hands on him and the sensation of her skin against his fingers as he released fastenings and smoothed fabric from her winter-pale body. Flashes of recollection came to him and, for a moment, it was like looking into a mirror again when he had let the last scrap of lace fall to the floor between them. Hermione's hands stilled on the button of his waistband when he let his hands fall to his sides.

"Severus?" she asked eventually.

He drew in a ragged breath, his composure fractured for a moment into equal parts of love, grief, regret and arousal. He covered her hands with his own and bent to kiss her mouth again. "Just ... making sure I remember," he said eventually, barely lifting his mouth from hers to speak. He smoothed his hands over hers and up her arms to cup her shoulders for a moment, before smiling and trailing his fingers down to her breasts. The smile widened as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back; he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, peaked and hard under his touch, and then pinched lightly. She gasped his name.

"So it works for you as well ..." he murmured, and struggled not to laugh when Hermione's eyes flew open as she took in what he meant. Then she grinned and he wondered what he'd let himself in for.

A blink later, he had his answer. Six months of dressing - and undressing - in his clothes had ensured that Hermione had no trouble undoing what needed to be undone and he was shuddering helplessly as she wrapped one hand around him and teased the tip of erection with the thumb of her other hand. A swift flick of a fingernail across the opening almost brought him over the edge.

"You weren't the only one ... experimenting, Severus," she murmured into the stillness.

He had just enough presence of mind to retort "Thankfully," and drag her to the bed. If she had done any more experimentation, he was likely to end up on his knees - and that could be painful, on a stone floor.

They tumbled onto the covers, an entwined chaos of limbs as they sought each other and themselves; mouths met mouths, skin pressed against skin, the air warm and heavy with gasps and moans. At first they played, each teasing the other with the knowledge accumulated over six months - Snape slid two fingers swiftly into Hermione, twisting and turning in the slick heat to find the spot ... that spot ... and Hermione arched against him with a sudden cry as she came apart in his arms.

"That's not fair ... oh god, it felt good ..." she gasped as he held her, shuddering and apparently boneless, in his arms. He pushed her hair back from her face with one hand, staring down at her and trying to memorise this moment, this expression. If once was all he would have, once would have to do forever. Snape focussed all his attention on the details, the heat in her face and the deep relaxation in her eyes, as she sprawled across the bed in an uninhibited abandon. He knew she was still pulsing slightly inside, the feeling almost tangible in his memory, a delicious after-shock of sensation.

Her hand on him again brought him back to his own arousal and his picture of her clicked, burnt into his memory. He would drag it out on cold nights in the middle of nowhere in later years and remember and, for a moment, like himself again.

A sudden shift and abrupt heat; she had taken him ... oh ... her mouth open around him and the heat and wet touch of her tongue; and in all that, what almost undid him was the delight in her eyes. She had been paying more attention than he thought when he had done this to her, with the deft touch of tongue, lips and teeth ... and her hands, cupping him and pressing ... there. Just ... uhhhh ... please ... where the hell had she learnt to do that?!

"Hermione," he gasped, pulling her up against him, pushing against her as she pressed into him. "Where ... no ... I don't want to know, but thank you ..."

Then words were impossible as she - he - they - he wasn't sure who moved first but he was over her and in her and ... and he had hadn't known, couldn't have imagined, just exactly how this felt; nothing but Hermione, and the two of them together, and the focus of sensation on the hot sheath of muscles clenching and rippling against him as he pushed into her.

He stilled ... he had to, or this would be over before it had even begun. Hermione's arms stole around his neck, not urging but simply connecting as he looked down at her. Her eyes opened, meeting his, and he involuntarily pushed further into her at the heat there. They held still again, the only movement between them hidden as she held him. "Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked in a voice thick with emotion and arousal. Snape could do no more than nod; the present and past fused together in his mind and memory, and he felt her around him and in him ... both sides, now.

And that was the last thing either of them thought for a while; recollection and reality took them past restraint and they tumbled headlong into a maelstrom of soft urgings, groans stifled as Snape buried his face in Hermione's shoulder, shudders and encouragement as they finally drew together. Dark fell outside as they committed to separation.

Oh and this was everything that she could have wanted. Touch and feel, pressure and release, ebb and flow; the sensations crowding over and around and inside her. His mouth and his hands on her, teasing, pulling, exploring - was this what it had felt like for him, this overwhelming sense of completeness? And the taste of him, nipping, sucking, targeting those points that made him buck and shake under her tongue; the half-choked sounds, individually incoherent, but a comprehensible whole. She wanted to remember this moment; capturing his face in her mind, the unguarded look of near anguish as he pushed into her, feeling - knowing - the depth of his control, remembering the tightness and the softness and the warmth. Then the friction took her, exploding outwards into her and he buried his head in her shoulder, arching and stiffening as she ran her hands over him, memorising the planes and contours this one last time.

She rocked her pelvis, instinctively wanting to draw him as far into her as she could, imprinting him on the deepest part of her, improbably wanting to mark that one moment into her muscle memory, to be retrieved at need, at times of wanting, when this would be a half-recollected fantasy, a shadow in the hinterlands of possibility. His muffled sounds vibrated against her skin and she didn't want this to end, wanted to remain at that point of balance, in that instant before the world broke apart, outside time, where only _they_ had meaning.

But the instinct that made her want to stop time, urged it forward beyond her control. Mouth and hands and mind and heart came together and then broke apart in the barely articulated syllables of his name.

Afterwards, she held him, not wanting to miss any least scrap of the experience, fighting the desire to drowsing - there would be time enough for sleep in the days to come. She didn't have the luxury of lazing in an afterglow laced with the knowledge that there was more to come. She traced her fingers across his skin, aide-memoire rather then foreplay. His hand covered her, stilling the touch. His fingers laced into hers and drew her hand to his mouth, pressing it against his lips, tongue tasting at the tips. She closed her eyes; she was clearly not the only one stockpiling memories.

She moved her hand to caress his cheek, the angles familiar to her after months of shaving.

"If things were different," she murmured, "if it wasn't for Voldemort ..."

"If it wasn't for Voldemort," he agreed.

"I just didn't want you to think that, I mean ...," she trailed off, feeling that something needed to be said and again not certain how to begin. Maybe she should take his earlier advice to just say it. "I want you," she stated bluntly.

It was not quite what was in her mind, but the other would make the situation too difficult.

She felt the muscles of his face move under her hand and knew that he was smiling.

"I had noticed that you appeared to," he said rather dryly, but she thought his voice had an unusual roughness to it. "And in case you were in any doubt about it, I want you too."

She rather thought that he had side-stepped as she had; to avoid adding another overt complication to the situation. Or perhaps she was just projecting her own feelings onto a simple statement. In any event it hardly mattered now. She lay there a moment longer, knowing that the time had come, that there would never be a point at which this would be easy. She drew her hand away from his face.

"I should go," she said reluctantly.

Snape drew back a little from her.

"Yes," he agreed quietly. "I think that you should."

She sat up and slid off the bed. Silently, she began to retrieve her clothes and get dressed. Movement on the edge of her vision told her that Snape was doing the same thing. She was thankful for that; thankful that she didn't have to see him sprawled naked across the covers, bearing the traces of their lovemaking. When she next looked at him he was dressed, face impassive, Snape-persona firmly in place. Only the shadowing of his eyes recalled the man she had been with only a short time ago.

It was time to go back. The storm of passion had passed, leaving her curiously calm and dry eyed.

"What about my studies?" she asked. His eyebrow raised; a quirk that gave her a pang and no doubt always would. "I don't mean classes," she clarified. "What about the project?"

"I see no reason for you not continue with your full academic studies," he said flatly. "Although, much of the writing up can be done in the library, I will still be expecting you to complete the practical aspects." His tone softened a little. "It would be highly out of character for you not to finish your project. However, our dealings must remain strictly those of student and teacher."

As she watched him, the mask slipped just a little, just enough to allow a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth.

 _Friends of sorts then. In a very appropriate kind of way. It would just have to be enough._

And with that it was done. There were no histrionics, no tears, no last minute embraces or declarations. Just understanding.

She nodded slowly and turned to leave.

"In that case, Professor Snape, I will see you in the Potions Room tomorrow evening."

 _Quick now, here, now, always - a condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything) and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well when the tongues of flame are in-folded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one._

 _T. - Little Gidding._

Severus Snape and Hermione Granger will return ...

 _Authors' note: thank you for reading. This has been enormous fun (and a heck of a lot of work!) to write over the past few months. Thank you to everyone who's provided feedback - you know who you are! To forestall the questions - yes, there will be a sequel, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. With everything else we have planned to write, we expect that F II will be appearing on your screens in about a year's time (no, that's neither a joke nor exaggeration. It'll be December 2003). Anne (MetroVampire) & Abby (Rhosymedre)._


End file.
